


A Monster By Any Other Name: Part Two

by Brosedshield, LaviniaLavender



Series: Freak Camp: A Monster By Any Other Name [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Not Related, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Concentration Camps, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff, Freak Camp 'verse, Horror, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Torture, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, PTSD, Past Brainwashing, Podfic Available, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Rape Recovery, Romance, Sam Winchester-Centric, Triggers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-05-29
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:23:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 37
Words: 353,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brosedshield/pseuds/Brosedshield, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaviniaLavender/pseuds/LaviniaLavender
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam was prepared for anything Dean wanted him to do – except become a real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Part Two of A Monster By Any Other Name. Be sure to start with the Prologue, then Part One (if you can handle it) before this.
> 
> Thank you again, whereupon, for being the best beta we could hope for, and more. <3
> 
> Hang on, everyone. This is going to be a bumpy ride.

Sam's first car ride was the most exhilarating experience of his life.

The highway sped away under the Impala's tires, the landscape outside flying by too fast for him to take in, Dean going twenty over the speed limit. There was so much flashing past, all the real world he had dreamed about but never imagined he would get a chance to see - but Dean was telling him they'd have time, Sammy, and this is nothing, wait until you see the Rockies or the Mississippi or until we get to the coast. It sounded like Dean wanted to keep him around for a while, which was another rush of euphoria, enough to make him feel dizzy and light enough to float away. Over and over, Sam had to remind himself that all this hung on whether ( _no, not how soon, he was good at being obedient and meeting expectations, he could make this last_ ) he screwed it up. 

It was hard—almost impossible—to think of how precarious it all was, though, with Dean smiling at him and talking nonstop of where they were going, what they were going to see, the diner in Utah where they would eat that night ("They have the best cherry pie this side of the U.S., Sam, wait until you get a bite!"). Sam could almost believe this was forever, that he could be here next to Dean, driving further and further from the camp, forever. That he wouldn't ever have to go back or go anywhere else, away from Dean.

Eventually Dean's voice ran hoarse, and he turned on the tape deck. He glanced at Sam. "I hope you like Led Zep."

Sam had no idea what that was, but he knew absolutely nothing - and he meant  _nothing_  - Dean did could bother him right now. He grinned at Dean, his face feeling stretched wide enough to crack. Maybe it would; he'd never smiled so much before. "Absolutely," he said, sure that was the right answer.

Dean seemed pleased with it, turning the volume up a notch. Then he reached back along the back of the seat, settling his hand on the back of Sam's neck, thumb and two fingers brushing bare skin.

Sam forgot how to breathe. He'd had this reaction before, whenever Dean touched his hand or arm or face, but never at this level. His vision didn't go dark, but he couldn't see at all, couldn't take anything in—lights were exploding behind his eyes. Unconsciously, he dropped his head forward, breathing carefully through his mouth. This couldn't last, it wouldn't—even outside of Freak Camp, a monster's life could, would, always get worse, he knew that—and he had to savor every second.

Distantly, he was aware of Dean looking at him. Dean's thumb and forefinger began to press gentle circles, moving in counter directions. A strange noise rose in Sam's throat, unbidden and unfamiliar—almost like some of the sounds he couldn't help making in interrogations, but entirely different, too. Startled, he choked it off, clenching his hands around the sides of his jeans. He never made noises unless he absolutely couldn't help it.

"Hey, Sam," Dean said, soft and coaxing, and just the sound of it made him relax again. "You okay? Do you like that, Sammy?"

His nails dug helplessly into his jeans. Dean was asking him a question, he wanted to answer—but every instinct he had screamed for him not to admit it, because he liked this more than anything he could recall, and he  _did not_ want to lose it. His hands unclenched, pushing hard toward his knees, then curled into fists again.

Dean's hand shifted, almost losing contact, but then his whole palm and four fingers pushed under Sam's shirt collar, pressing flat and warm against the back of his neck. Sam couldn't help it—he gave a shuddering gasp, dragging his hands back up his thighs before pushing them against the seat. Never had he felt so strung out, teetering on edge, from so little contact or effort, and never had the experience felt  _good_. He didn't know what to do—he couldn't process what was going on with the lack of pain.

"Come on, Sam," Dean whispered. "Tell me if you like it. Tell me." His fingers rubbed and squeezed, constant movement over Sam's skin. It was gentle and compelling, and the rest of Sam's senses faded away until he was aware of nothing, not of space or time or what he was supposed to be with Dean, nothing but the hand against his neck.

Sam's lips moved, but no sound came out. He couldn't utter a word, though he  _wanted_ to answer Dean; his mind and body had locked down, refusing to let him jeopardize the best thing he had ever felt. Instead, another strange non-pain whimper came from his throat, against his will—oh God, he didn't want Dean to misinterpret these sounds in the chance he would stop if he thought Sam  _didn't_  like it. But Sam still couldn't force any kind of coherent words out of his mouth. Even if he  _had_ been able to form words, sentences, he didn't know the correct response to prolong the contact.

He was aware, finally, they were slowing down, gravel rumbling under the tires. But Dean's hand didn't let up, so Sam kept his eyes shut until he felt the car come to a stop. Then he forced his head up—even though Dean's fingers were still rubbing at the back of his neck and it was so fucking hard to move—to see what was going on, what the new situation was and what he should do. 

But Dean was already moving, sliding toward him, pulling Sam closer with the hand on Sam's neck. "C'mere," he murmured, and before Sam could react or think, Dean's mouth was against his.

He had felt it for the first time not an hour ago, that chaste kiss outside the gate amidst the most life-changing moment of his existence, when he had touched his bare throat for the first time in eleven years. It hadn't lasted long then, and he'd been far too dazed to process it. Now, though, all his nerves were lit, firing off chain reactions through his body, coiling and swooping in his stomach and tingling his hands.

There was no explanation for Dean doing this, but Sam couldn't think. Dean still cupped the back of his neck, holding him there, while his other hand slid down Sam's bicep. Dean's lips were brushing his, exploring and moving, and it was the most exquisite experience of Sam's life, far beyond anything he could have ever imagined happening to him.

Dean pulled back, just a breath apart, to whisper, "Just relax, Sammy, go with it." Though most of Sam's brain had shut down in shock—perhaps permanently—he had enough instincts for obedience left to try to do what Dean said. When they kissed again, Sam responded, moving against him eagerly.

Dean guided him, setting the pace. He kept it slow, unhurried, but then he nudged Sam's mouth open and licked inside, his tongue making contact against Sam's. Sam couldn't keep from making a surprised noise and almost jolted back, but Dean laughed in his throat and tightened his hand on Sam's neck, holding him there.

It seemed to go on forever, with them occasionally breaking apart to catch a breath, but even in the pauses Dean didn't stop moving, trailing his lips down Sam's jaw, gliding over his neck. They pressed closer and closer together until Dean's thigh was between Sam's, his hand steady on Sam's lower back. Sam felt melted, undone. But for the first time he wasn't the least bit worried about anything. Nothing bad could happen to him, here. He couldn't do anything wrong, not with Dean holding him and leading so gently.

Finally, Dean pulled back more definitely. He was the most beautiful thing Sam had ever seen, Sam thought hazily, staring at his flushed cheeks and swollen, dark lips. 

Dean touched his face lightly, brushing his fingers over Sam's cheek and jaw. "More later, I promise." He leaned in again to kiss Sam's lips, then pulled back to smile. "I want to make it to that diner before they close."

Sam still didn't think he was capable of words, but he tried to follow Dean's lead, disentangling, but desperately unwilling to lose contact. Dean didn't seem to mind, letting him scoot close so their sides and legs were pressed together as he started the car and eased back onto the highway.

They didn't talk much over the next couple of hours, music filling the car. Sam had no idea what it was, but since it was Dean's favorite, he loved it. Dean drove with one hand, the other arm around Sam's shoulders, and they were  _still_ heading away from Freak Camp. Sam didn't care anymore about the passing scenery; it could have been a volcanic wasteland or blank desert whiteness, and he wouldn't have been any less happy. He was with Dean. Dean was touching him, Dean wanted him, they were leaving camp far behind. It couldn't get better than this. 

The sun was just starting to set as they pulled into Tooele, Utah. When they stopped at a gas station, Sam shook his head when Dean asked if he needed to use the restroom inside or wanted to stretch his legs. He already felt safer inside the Impala than he had anywhere in his life, and he never wanted to get out, unless he was going to be close to Dean. Besides, he could see other reals stopped nearby, standing outside their vehicles as they filled their tanks, and just looking at them from inside Dean's car made him nervous. He didn't want to get any closer. 

Dean had given him hunter's clothes—he still could hardly believe it when he glanced down and looked at them—but it wouldn't be enough to disguise what he was, even if he didn't have any distinguishing marks apart from the tattoo high on his chest. That would be enough by itself if anyone saw, but he already knew there was no way he could pass himself off as a real, and the idea of what might happen if someone mistook him for a real and then realized what he was...Sam shuddered. He had no idea yet what Dean had in store for him, if he would be kept most of the time in the Impala, or in a room in Dean's house (that did sound wonderful), but he hoped Dean didn't expect him to have much contact with reals. Better for everyone that way.

When Dean opened the driver's door to slide back in, Sam couldn't keep from grinning widely at him, still so damn giddy to be  _out_ and with  _Dean_. This was already far longer than any visit they'd had previously, and to think it would  _continue_ —every day seeing Dean—Sam didn't know how he could cope with that much happiness. It felt like his heart could beat itself out of his chest, that his fingers and his entire body felt alive and ecstatic to be out, away and with Dean forever.

Dean grinned back at him, pleased. "So, the guy inside said Rosie's diner is closer to the town center, we just gotta keep following Vine."

Sam nodded, unsure why Dean was telling him, but he filed it away in case he checked later to see if Sam had listened.

The parking lot for Rosie's diner was nearly full, and Dean had some trouble squeezing the Impala into a spot between an Oldsmobile and an SUV. "Damn Mormons," he muttered, shutting off the engine. "Always breeding like bunnies. C'mon, Sam, let's see if we can get a booth."

Sam froze. He had been glancing inside at the crowded tables, waitresses hurrying around, and wondering how this was going to work, if Dean would go inside to get food and later give him a share, or something. But Dean wanted him to go  _inside_ and eat with all those reals? He couldn't have understood right. The Director would never...

Dean, however, was looking at him expectantly from outside the car, and Sam fumbled for the door handle, just realizing he hadn't  _obeyed_.

"Sorry," he gasped as soon as he joined Dean by the curb, but Dean just gave him an odd look before turning to swing open the diner's door. He paused there, waiting for Sam to go through, and Sam took a shaky breath before stepping over the threshold.

He stopped just inside the entryway, overwhelmed by the sounds and smells and so many  _reals_ , all talking and eating and moving around, and none of them had seen him yet. Not yet. They were bound to notice soon, though. Then they would know there was a monster in their restaurant and they would  _look_  at him and Dean would have to—

He jumped when a hand brushed his elbow, but it was only Dean, and the sight of him so close eased Sam's pounding heart a touch. Dean looked a little concerned. "You feeling okay? You looked like you were about to pass out for a second."

Sam nodded, taking a step closer to Dean's side before he could stop himself, but Dean didn't seem to mind being seen with a monster. He left his hand on Sam's elbow as he glanced around. "Pretty sure this is a seat-yourself type place. I think I see a spot over there." He led them to a booth near the back and slid into the far seat facing the door, then nodded toward the seat across from him. "C'mon, Sam, have a seat."

Sam had no idea what the consequences would be for this, but he didn't hesitate this time. He sat across from Dean, folding his arms on the edge of the table, the sweat on the back of his neck prickling against the collar of his new shirt.

Dean watched him, brow creased. "Sure you're feeling okay?" Sam jerked his head in a quick nod, eyes down. "I guess this is your first time eating out, huh?" Dean reached across the table, laying a finger on the back of his hand, and Sam couldn't keep from giving a full-body jump like the touch had been a rod of hot blessed iron. Shit, he was already fucking up, doing everything wrong. Dean thought Sam could do this without anyone noticing he was a freak, and Sam  _couldn't_ , he didn't know how. This had never been one of the Director's lessons ( _he would be so angry_ ). He'd never imagined he could be  _allowed_ to be around so many reals, much less to imitate them. 

Before he could try to say anything, apologize for failing or beg before Dean got angry with him, a woman stopped in front of their table. "Welcome to Rosie's, guys, what can I get you to drink?"

"I'll take a coke," Dean said.

"What about for you, hon?"

She was talking to him. The real was talking to  _him_ , thinking he was a real, too, and the second he opened his mouth she would realize, and then—terrified, Sam squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, bowing it to the table.

"Two cokes," he heard Dean say.

The woman walked away, and Sam still couldn't move, every joint in his body and every thought in his head locked up tight. He couldn't do this, and he knew he was disappointing Dean, already couldn't meet his expectations and Dean was about to realize how  _worthless_ he was—

"Hey Sam," Dean said softly, and Sam hunched down tighter. Dean reached across again and took his hand, and Sam barely managed to minimize the flinch this time. "Hey, it's okay. I know this is all really new, but...do you want to come sit by me?"

Shocked, Sam dared to peek up through his hair. Dean didn't look remotely angry, just that same strange worry and concern on his face. He tilted his head toward the seat next to him, and Sam chose to believe in the offer, believe it was okay to accept. He nodded.

Dean let go of his hand to slide out of the seat, standing up, and Sam scrambled out and around, pushing himself in as far as he could go. Dean settled in next to him, and after a second's hesitation, laid his arm over Sam's shoulders. Instantly, Sam relaxed, the tension rolling down and out. The weight of Dean's arm was immensely comforting, and with Dean as a barrier between him and the reals, he felt reassured. He breathed out, slouching down.

"You're okay," Dean said quietly, then slid a laminated menu over in front of him. "Anything look good?"

It was hard to make any sense out of the text. He recognized ingredients, food—but he couldn't begin to think about any of it as real choices, as food that would appear in front of him, just like for any real. Impossible—and besides, his stomach was still roiling as it had from the moment he'd stepped out of the car. He hadn't eaten since breakfast, but he didn't feel remotely hungry, wasn't sure how he'd be able to swallow anything even if it did arrive.

Finally, Sam shrugged, bending his head to speak into Dean's shoulder. "Whatever you want."

Dean's fingers tapped a nervous rhythm against Sam's arm, then slowed to rub in a more deliberately soothing motion. Sam breathed out, closing his eyes. Inexplicably, Dean didn't seem impatient or annoyed with him yet.

"I'm thinking a basic cheeseburger," Dean said, in a good attempt at his usual easy nonchalance. "Plus fries and onion rings. The onion rings are the real attraction, they don't make them like this anywhere else. Trust me, I've looked."

As Dean went on, Sam relaxed a little more. This was more familiar now to all their past visits, how even when he didn't really know what Dean was talking about, the confidence and sound of Dean's voice alone was enough to lull him almost into believing he was safe, that no one could hurt him. The reality of being  _out_ of Freak Camp had yet to sink in, and as alien and terrifying as the real world was, he could believe now that Dean would take care of him. Dean got him out, he wasn't going to let Sam walk into something that would get him thrown straight back in. He felt a little ashamed for how he'd been acting, like his fear was an insult. If Dean thought he could eat with reals, sit with him and order real food, then he could.

All the same, when their drinks and food arrived, he couldn't bring his head up to look at the waitress. Dean pressed his shoulder once more before letting go to move one plate in front of Sam and pile the baskets between them.

Sam assumed that the bread, cheese, meat, tomato and lettuce combo in front of him was a cheeseburger, that the fried circles were onion rings, which left the thin, pale yellow sticks as fries, but he wouldn’t have wanted Dean to test him at this point. Dean grinned at him, though it had a nervous quality to it, and then reached for his own cheeseburger.

“Come on, Sam, eat up,” he said, and turned to his own food and dug in.

Sam obediently reached for his burger like Dean had, brought it to his lips and took a big bite. 

The flavors and textures exploded in his mouth, slid down his tongue, and he had to stop chewing and put the burger down just to marvel at the moment. Bread and meat and cheese, but nothing like the bread and meat that he had had in the past. This tasted  _good_ , completely good, and not like insects or rot or dirt. He didn’t even have words for the flavors, the sensations on his tongue, except to say that this food, maybe for the first time in his life, was  _good_.

It was like what the guards ate, but  _better_  because Sam didn’t have any other taste on his tongue.

Dean was halfway through his burger and watching him with a slight crease on his forehead. “You okay, Sam?” he asked. “You look a little…I don’t know. Is your burger okay? Something weird in it?”

Sam hurriedly snatched the burger back up and took another bite, working hard to ignore how _fucking fantastic_ it tasted in the need to show Dean that he was appreciating the food he had bought for him, hoping that he wouldn’t take it away.

Then he had to swallow, and almost choked getting the burger down his throat so fast, but it worked out okay. “No, Dean. It’s good. It’s fine. It’s…” Sam struggled for the words, words that would show Dean how he appreciated the food without even coming close to what was in his head.  _Heavenly, so fucking good, cosmic_. “It’s  _delicious_ ,” he said at last, but he must have said it with more energy than he intended because Dean grinned and laughed. Sam felt an instant of nerves—not even fear yet, he was so overwhelmed by not being at Freak Camp anymore—when Dean reacted, but even those faded away almost instantly when he saw the relieved smile on Dean's face.

“I’m glad you like it, Sammy,” Dean said, his wide grin almost as wonderful as the taste of burger on Sam’s tongue. “Come on, keep going."

Sam ate, and Dean ate, and it was, again, the best moment of Sam’s life. He ate, and he did his best not to make happy noises when he crunched into the onion rings, and he watched Dean eat. He marveled at the lack of hurry or fear in him. Sure, Dean ate quickly, but who wouldn’t with food this good? At camp, no matter how bad the meal had been, the monsters had scarfed it so other monsters couldn't take it away and the guards wouldn't start to think that they weren't hungry and needed fewer rations. But there was none of that fear in Dean as he ate, and Sam couldn’t hold onto it for himself, either. None of the reals were looking in their direction, the waitress barely glanced at them, and it was just him and Dean,  _eating_ , Dean’s arm brushing his every time he raised a french fry to his lips.

At the end of the meal, there was pie. Dean asked him what flavor he wanted, and Sam ducked his head. He knew this right answer, too.

“Cherry,” he said, happiness flooding him all over again when Dean grinned.

“That was the flavor I brought you, wasn’t it?” Dean said. “I love cherry pie.”

While he ordered, Dean slid his hand over Sam’s on the table. Sam stared at it, and then dropped his head, unable to stop the smile on his face or the way his heart rate picked up when Dean touched him. He hoped the real waitress hadn’t noticed, but he also didn’t really care. Dean could do anything he wanted to him. And Dean had  _touched_ him again.

This cherry pie came to them in neat wedges, each on its own individual plate, covered in ice cream and whipped cream. Sam felt a little nervous when Dean picked up his fork to cut off a bite, but Sam mastered the movement fairly quickly. A lot had depended on him learning basic physical motions quickly in the last few months—hand motions accompanying the creation of holy water, knife moves—so he had no problem bringing the sweet, bright pie to his mouth.

He had to stop after the first bite. The world may have blanked out for a second. No wonder Dean loved this stuff, if it always tasted like this.

Dean nudged him, and Sam didn’t even have the energy or the fear to flinch.

“Better than when it comes from my pocket, isn’t it?” Dean asked.

Sam almost shook his head, but Dean was already smiling. “I’m just glad that I finally get to feed you the real stuff. It’s been a long six months, Sammy.”

 _But they were worth it._  This was heaven. He had been in hell, and somehow Dean had come and taken him to heaven, and he never would have deserved to have this without hell, without training, without…. It was all worth it now to have Dean. 

When they walked out of the restaurant, Dean paused in the shadows by the Impala to tip Sam’s lips up to his. Sam's knees almost gave out, but Dean kept his hands gently on Sam's shoulders so he couldn't waver or fall. They kissed for what felt like a year, what felt like an eternity of Dean’s soft, sweet tongue against his mouth, before Dean pulled away—looking a little dazed—and opened the door for him.

Sam slid in, feeling breathless, mindless and blissful.

Dean hurried around the Impala and turned the ignition, though not before reaching over to run his hand over Sam's shoulders and squeeze. “I’m so happy, Sam,” he said. “I’m so happy you’re here. Look, I got us a place in Boulder, but that’s a bit of a drive. What do you say we just check into the local hotel, get a good night’s sleep and then head out in the morning.” He grinned. “Not that I couldn’t drive it, I’ve made longer drives with less sleep and shrapnel in my shoulder to boot, but it would be nice to get into Boulder when you can actually see things, seeing as it’s your first time seeing…anything, you know? What do you think?”

“That sounds wonderful, Dean,” Sam said.  _You are wonderful._

Dean smiled. “Cool.” 

There was less to see in the small town, in the dark, but Sam could lean back against the seat and listen to the purr of the Impala. This day had been so good. Dean was so good, as Sam had always known he would be. But just the mention of a hotel, their first night, reminded him that Dean hadn’t taken him out of FREACS for the hell of it, or because he was a real or something. Dean had been damn good to him, and now that they were away from camp and had eaten, Dean would want him to start paying him back.

Back in Freak Camp, Sam wouldn't have worried quite as much. He was obedient. He was good with his mouth. He knew what was expected. But one thing that this day had not been was anything like Freak Camp. He worried about how  _good_ Dean had been to him that day. Sam couldn’t remember the last time he had been this well fed, or gone without any kind of pain or threat of pain for so long. He wasn’t sure he had enough skills, or enough understanding of what Dean wanted, to pay for that wonderfulness.

His stomach wasn’t so full he didn’t feel a knot of nerves forming. He knew what was coming, even though he _didn’t_ know at the same time. For years he had been saving himself for Dean, but his total lack of experience with this one crucial act made him more nervous than any prospect of pain or degradation could. Dean was so kind to him – getting him out, feeding him the best food,  _reals_ ’ food – Sam didn’t care if Dean turned out to be as vicious as Crusher in bed. That was hard to imagine anyway, but even if that were the case, Sam wouldn’t mind. He’d undergo anything for Dean and thank him for it. He'd be  _glad_ to thank him, not like when the Director made him express gratitude for a beating that made him a tiny bit less of a useless monster-whore. However Dean chose to treat him was more than Sam deserved, just because it would be Dean's hands or Dean's belt touching him.

He didn't let himself think for a moment sex would be anything like those blissful kisses, the last of which still had his lips tingling. That wasn't possible, not even with Dean, not for a monster. And while the prospect of intense pain and blood didn't faze him, it really didn't ( _not with Dean_ ), he was worried about how he would handle it, since it  _was_  his first time—God, what if he did something that disgusted Dean or made him uncomfortable? Sam would rather Dean drove nails through his hand to hold him down than for one second regret getting him out. 

He still couldn't believe this was actually about to happen,  _tonight_ , what he'd been holding onto for for all those years. All those threats and close calls with Crusher and others—getting fucked by  _them_ had been the one thing he had been truly afraid of, far more than his own death. If Crusher hadn't been interrupted those times when he'd pinned Sam down in the shower and breaking room—it would have been far better if Sam hadn't survived the first fucking. There would have been no point—no hope remaining that Dean would ever have come back for him. Sam had never let himself think of getting fucked as a real possibility when it actually had been, but now that he was here beside Dean—finally  _safe_ for the first time in his life, with nothing to stop Dean from being his first that same night—he couldn't help shuddering at how very close it had been.

Dean glanced at him, arm still over his shoulders. "You okay?"

Sam smiled, unable to hold back his giddy relief and euphoria, even after so many hours. "Yeah. I'm—I'm so glad, Dean."

Dean's warm smile in return made him close his eyes, overcome with bliss.  _Everything_ , he thought.  _Everything was worth this, right now_.

The high lasted until they pulled in front of a Holiday Inn, and Dean paused as he slid his arm off Sam's shoulder. "I'm just gonna run in and get a room. You okay waiting here?"

Sam nodded automatically, and watched Dean stride past the glass doors to the reception desk.

Alone, he remembered a few niggling additional uncertainties about what was facing him, the gnawing feeling that he would end up badly disappointing Dean if he didn't find out, right now, what was expected of him. He wished he knew for certain what Dean wanted, because Sam was positive it wouldn't be exactly the same as what the guards did and liked. For instance, Sam was pretty positive Dean wouldn't want to hear him scream or cry. He had resolved not to make a sound, no matter how bad it got.

Now he was trying to decide if Dean would mind him, afterward, getting up to clean off the blood. Sometimes the guards and hunters wanted to leave it, to show. He was almost sure Dean wouldn't mind ( _it didn't pay to be sure of anything, ever, he couldn't trust his judgment_ ), but he should ask to be certain. But what if Dean got angry when he asked, maybe he was just supposed to know one way or the other. God, Sam had never been so afraid of making the wrong move, the consequences of losing Dean more dire than any punishment he'd ever faced.

His building apprehension was cut short when Dean opened the driver's door, dropping back onto the seat. "Okay, we're all set. Room 112, it's on the other side, she said. Two twins, hope that's okay." He slid a quick glance over to Sam.

Sam had no idea what that meant, but he nodded quickly before Dean could interpret it as reluctance.

As they circled the parking lot, Sam reviewed his resolutions.  _No sounds. No hesitation. Don't blank out, no matter what, you have to stay aware to respond to whatever cues he gives you. If he wants you to move, move and move quickly. Best not to get up afterward until he tells you to._  But his certainty wavered again. What if Dean expected...what if he was disgusted because Sam did the wrong thing...surely it would be better just to ask now. He couldn't be more angry about Sam asking now, just to be sure, than he would be when Sam actually fucked up in the middle of everything. Dean had to forgive him for being stupid, especially since this counted as the early stage of training—

"Right, Sammy, I think this is as close as we're going to get."

Sam jumped, but Dean was already out of the car, heading toward the trunk. Sam scrambled after him, breath caught in his throat. The opportunity had passed. He could only hope now that he could wing it to Dean's satisfaction.

Dean pulled out a couple duffel bags, and Sam reached to take them, but Dean slung them over his own shoulder before slamming the trunk shut. "Naw, Sam, I got it."

Sam yanked his hand back, face burning.  _See, that's the kind of stupid assumptions that make you so worthless, that are going to get you thrown back into Freak Camp before you know it._ He should have known better than to think Dean would want him handling his personal things.

Dean was already at the door, fiddling with the key card, and Sam swallowed hard before catching up. That had been a mistake, but he was lucky, Dean didn't seem angry about it. Sam was still okay.

But when the door opened and he saw two beds set apart, he couldn't smother a brief flash of disappointment. He had been hoping he'd get to lie next to Dean, afterward, but it seemed Dean wanted to keep his bed clean. Which made sense, really, he shouldn't have been surprised.

Dean swung his bags onto the closer bed, glancing back at him. "C'mon in, Sam, you're gonna let the bedbugs out."

Sam jumped, but quickly stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. And he realized that for the first time in eleven years, he didn't know what to do in the presence of a real, where to go. He hadn't the faintest clue where Dean wanted him to be. With the Director, he'd be on his knees in a corner, head down, waiting for the first instruction—but Sam's brain refused to put Dean and the Director together, refused to finish the thought or send him to his knees, not yet, not now.

"Here, Sam." Dean was holding something out to him, and Sam moved forward to take it. It was a toothbrush, still sealed in its packaging. He stared at it uncomprehendingly.

"I, um -" Dean scratched the back of his neck, a gesture incongruous with the easy confidence with which Sam had always seen him move. "I picked you up a few things, since I figured you wouldn't be bringing much with you out of.... Anyway, it's just to tide you over until we get home and you can pick out stuff for yourself." He offered a plastic bag. When Sam looked down at it, he could see a comb, deodorant and a tube of toothpaste through the clear plastic sides. 

Dean grinned nervously. "What, not your favorite color?" Then the smile dropped. "They had toothbrushes in Freak Camp, right?"

God, Dean looked almost worried, like it would actually matter that Sam knew what they were. Sam nodded, almost frantically, knowing that whatever else he did, he couldn't let that worry stay on Dean's face. Dean had nothing to worry about. Dean couldn't be anything less than perfect, and not just because he was a real and a hunter, but because...he was Dean. "Yes. Of course. We had to brush our teeth every day." The toothbrushes were some of the few things that had been specific to each monster, their ID numbers written on each handle. He took the bag maybe too quickly from Dean's hand. "Thank you, these are wonderful, this is fine. Thank you, Dean."

Dean looked more relieved than the information warranted. Or maybe not. Maybe monster hygiene was very important to reals everywhere. "That's cool then. I mean, I'm not as good with brushing as I should be, but...yeah." Dean took a deep breath and nodded toward the bathroom. "You can go ahead and use the bathroom first."

Sam hesitated, not sure if that was an order or just a statement, and then moved hurriedly into the small room and closed the door softly. He didn't close it all the way—guards had broken bones when monsters seemed to be hiding from them—but he thought that Dean would tell him to open the door, or just come in if he wanted to.

In the bathroom, Sam washed his hands and thoroughly brushed his teeth without looking in the mirror. The guards told him he was pretty, but mirrors had only ever made him see a bony, ugly monster, nothing at all like the well-fed hunters. He'd been told often enough that his ass was his only advantage that he didn't even bother looking at his face.

At least until he'd rinsed his mouth. Then he tipped his face up and stared himself in the eye, like he would have looked at any other monster.

He wished he knew if there were something he could do to that face in the mirror, the face he almost didn't recognize as his own, to make this night better for Dean. He wished there was something he could do to make his heart slow down. He imagined that Dean could hear it all the way in the other room. 

He hesitated, looking around and wondering if there was something else he was supposed to do. White towels hung from a nearby rod, but he didn't even think about touching them. Dean would tell him what to use, what to do, because he was so kind. Sam trusted him. 

When he stepped back out, he noticed a small stack of clothes—T-shirt, boxers—on the end of the closer bed. Dean was fiddling with a pair of mismatched socks, but he set them aside and stood up. "All done?"

Sam nodded, moving out of the doorway to set his back to the wall, eyes on his shoes. Before going in, Dean stopped a moment beside him, but went inside without saying anything. Sam listened to the water running, not moving a muscle. It was easier this way, just to wait. Then he realized he was retreating, the same way he did during the Director's sessions or any interrogation, and he tried to stop, to stay  _here_. Dean had gotten him out, and Sam wanted to give him everything, because he deserved all he had—it wasn't much, not much to offer a man like Dean, but he wasn't going to cheat him of anything.

The door opening took him by surprise, and he jumped before he could stop himself.

"Hey," Dean said. He was looking at him, Sam could tell, Sam could  _feel_ Dean's eyes on him, but he couldn't bring himself to glance up. "Sure you're okay?" Sam nodded quickly, hands twisting in the sides of his shirt. "I put those clothes on your bed for you to change into, dunno if you saw..." His hand slipped over Sam's, and Sam forced himself to be still. Dean's other hand reached out to trace a line down his face, stopping under his chin to lift his head, ever so lightly, up. Sam's eyes followed him, met the mesmerizing green of Dean's eyes, and then, for the fourth time that day, Dean kissed him.

It was just as sweet as the ones before, just as unhurried and gentle, and it would have been as easy for Sam to fall into it and forget everything else. He couldn't let himself do that, though. He couldn't forget what depended on this night, and he needed to keep his head, not get swept away. He wanted to show Dean he was ready, that he wouldn't dawdle or resist for a moment.

So as his back touched the wall, and Dean's hands closed around his shoulders, Sam dropped his hands to the small space between them, to work the button open on his jeans. He could have opened Dean's fly and had him down his throat in about two seconds, but it took Sam almost six to get the button open; the material was stiff, tricky, and he wasn't used to opening a fly on himself.

Dean stopped then, pulling back. "Sam, what are you—" But Sam finally managed to pop the button free, and he didn't need to get the zipper down to push the jeans, with his boxers, to the floor. 

Dean jerked back, his hands flinching off of Sam's shoulders. "Whoa, hey—moving kind of fast, aren't you?" A nervous chuckle rose in his voice, the only gauge Sam had for his reaction, since he couldn't force himself to look up again. He swallowed hard, trying to keep his breathing under control, even though he had already messed up, Dean was upset and—he should have gone to his knees first. That should have been obvious, seeing how that's what he actually had experience in.  _Stupid, fucking monster_. But maybe he could still salvage something, if he was very good. If he did everything right there was still a chance....please, God, let there be a chance...Dean was interested, he could tell, there was still a chance...

He reached for Dean's belt buckle, but had hardly touched it when Dean grabbed his hands, hard. Sam flinched, catching his breath. He wished his hands weren't starting to shake.

"Sam." Dean's voice sounded odd, breathing uneven, but not in the way Sam was familiar with when they were ready to push him down. Sam risked the briefest of glances at his face. Dean was looking at his groin, but not with the lust or amusement he usually got if he were naked in front of a guard. If anything, Dean looked slightly sick. "Sam, wait. Just—just hold on a second." 

He didn't move, and Dean didn't let go of his wrists. After a moment, Dean tried again, still in that tight voice, "If you're not—we're not going to do this."

Sam thought the ground was going to fall away under him. He thought he was going to hyperventilate. He didn't know what he'd done, what he'd failed to do, why Dean suddenly didn't want to take him, when he'd been  _waiting_ and Dean had gone to such lengths to get him out, to make Sam his. How could he have destroyed everything, all of Dean's desire for him, so fast and with so little effort?

He struggled to speak, to get his tongue working again. "No, please—I'm ready, Dean, I swear I am—"

"You're obviously  _not!_ " Dean pushed his hands away, stepping back as though he couldn't stand to be close to him for another second. Sam flinched, pressing back against the wall with his chin to his chest.

For several moments, there was nothing but silence and Dean's heavy breathing. Then he said, as though trying to keep his voice steady, "Just...pull your pants up. Please."

It took Sam almost five seconds before he could obey, tugging them back up over his hips. It was harder this time to get the button closed.

Dean had turned away, hand pressed to his forehead, and another minute passed before he spoke. "Look, it's—been a really long day for both of us. You must be wiped. Let's just go to bed, okay?"

Sam didn't move, even as Dean went over to his bed to take out a change of clothes. Dean finally glanced over at him, mouth twisted. "If you want, you can change in the bathroom. Or sleep in that, whatever—whatever makes you happy. I'm going to bed." He dumped his bag on the other side of the bed, snapped off his light as he pulled the covers down, and got in with his back facing Sam.

Sam took a deep breath, struggling to get control of himself. Dean had put out the clothes, so he must have wanted him to change, but he also definitely didn't want Sam to undress anywhere near him. He took the clothes on the bed to the bathroom and changed there without turning on the light, folded the other clothes onto the toilet seat, then carried them back out. He stopped there, but Dean hadn't moved, and it only seemed logical that the other bed was for him. He had been whipped for assuming less, but he figured that at this point, it wouldn't matter. Dean didn't want him. He'd be back in Freak Camp by the next night.

~*~

In the morning, Dean took him to the hotel lobby, which had an array of breakfast food set out. He didn't say much, just motioned for Sam to get a plate, and Sam picked a muffin out of the glass case while Dean loaded his plate with a little of everything.

When Dean looked back at him, Dean didn't meet his eyes, only glanced at his plate. "That all you want?"

Sam nodded. He wasn't hungry, but Dean had seemed to expect him to get something.

He dawdled at the end of the bar. Dean sat down at a small table, then sighed and nudged the opposite chair with his foot. "C'mon, Sam."

So Dean still wanted to share a table with him. Sam hadn't been going to assume anything, not after last night. He sat down carefully, working the paper wrapper off and breaking the muffin into smaller pieces. It was his second and last meal out of Freak Camp, and he was going to try and savor it. A few reals had come in and taken other tables, but Sam couldn't bring himself to care. There was nothing they could do to him now, anyway.

He could feel Dean watching him, though he didn't look up. Then Dean pushed over one of his cups, filled with a bright orange liquid. Sam stilled.

"Here," Dean said. "It's orange juice."

Sam picked it up slowly, sipped, and almost choked in surprise at the sour, yet good, taste.  _Very_ good. His eyes glanced at Dean before he could help it, unsure how much he was supposed to have.

A smile flickered over Dean's lips. "Finish it. I can get some more."

Sam drank the orange juice and ate his muffin, pacing it so he finished his small helping at the same time as Dean with his large plate of food. Dean dusted his hands off and wiped his mouth with a napkin, eyes lingering on Sam's empty plate with its few crumbs scattered across. "Did you like it?"

Sam nodded quickly. The muffin had been delicious and very filling, but he hadn't gotten nearly as much enjoyment out of it as he had with the cheeseburger and onion rings from last night.

"Well, let's hit the road." Dean stood up, and Sam followed quickly.

The drive that morning was nothing like the one yesterday. Dean didn't talk or turn on his tape deck. Sam couldn't stop himself from replaying the night before, wondering what he'd done wrong, what he should've done differently. Even though they were fucking hopeless thoughts—he'd already fucked up far too much for a second chance, not with Dean.

He hadn't been paying attention to anything passing outside, but a sign caught his eye, the information registering automatically:  _15 miles to Salt Lake City, 450 to Cheyenne_. Salt Lake City was the capital of Utah, Cheyenne was the capital of Wyoming. Both were east of Nevada, and the road sign wouldn't be telling them that unless they were headed toward those cities...

...away from Freak Camp.

Sam felt his brain freeze for a second in shock. That couldn't be right. Freak Camp was the only place Dean could legally dump him ( _though a shallow grave and kerosene would work as well, no one but Dean would have to know_ ), because he was a monster. And he had fucked up, and Dean hadn't even bothered to punish him, which meant that Dean couldn't possibly want him. But if they weren't going back to Freak Camp, if they were going  _away_ , that meant he still had a chance. A chance he could persuade Dean he was worth  _something_. Maybe Dean didn't realize how well trained Sam was, how he could do  _anything_. Maybe if Sam acted right now, if he pushed a little bit  _right now_ , he could make Dean understand that even if Sam was stupid, fucked-up, and worthless, he could learn, he could be anything that Dean wanted him to be, or be nothing at all.

"Dean," he said, softly.

Dean glanced over at once, the crease between his eyebrows not lifting. He almost looked apprehensive, if Sam didn't know better. "Yeah, Sam?"

Sam wet his lips. "You can—you can do whatever you want with me, you know."

Dean glanced at Sam again, warily. "What do you mean?"

So Dean wanted to hear it explicitly—that was okay, a lot of guards had also liked to hear Sam talk as he jerked them off. He ran his tongue over his lips again, keeping his voice soft, even if he couldn't keep his words from tumbling out like blood gushing out of a wound. 

"I could suck your cock and swallow you down while you drive. Or you could bend my ass over the hood, here or anywhere, in front of anyone, w-with anyone. You could rent out my mouth, my ass, and I'd make money for you, Dean, I swear. Unless you just wanted to watch. 

"You could hurt me," he said, more urgently as he saw nothing on Dean's face indicating arousal, interest, _anything_ Sam could understand, " _any_ way you like, I won't mind. You could cut me, whip me, choke me, burn your initials on my balls—"

Dean jerked the wheel, bringing them to a hard stop on the side of the highway. "Stop," he said, voice shaking with anger. "Stop right now."

~

When Sam spoke—the first time he had opened his mouth since the disaster of last night—Dean had had a brief shred of hope that maybe Sam would reach out for him, they would be able to work this out together even though Dean had no idea what  _this_ was, what to do or how he could help. But when the words came out, the low, almost monotone list tripping out of Sam's mouth, of things he thought Dean would  _want_ , he could barely get his brain to process it, his hands clenching around the wheel, tighter and tighter as he fought to keep the horror off his face.

But when Sam told him how he could hurt him, Dean couldn't take it anymore, he couldn't just drive and pretend that he didn't want to push the fists he had wrapped around the wheel into someone's face, over and over again until that matter-of-fact tone disappeared from Sam's voice.

He jerked over before he killed them both ripping the wheel out of the dash.

That might not have been the right move either, Dean realized when Sam shrank into his seat, but his head had gone somewhere very far away.

He was having trouble breathing. How could he have messed up that badly—when did he ever give Sam reason to think he'd want  _any_  of that? 

"What kind of monster—? Why the hell do you think I'd want that?" he asked, throat almost too tight to let the words out of his mouth.

~

In the stillness after the damning words— _just a fucking monster, too stupid to know what Dean would ever want_ —every meager shred of hope Sam had had for a life with Dean fell through his fingers, as insubstantial as ashes. That was it. His last chance, gone. Dean had stopped the car, had made it clear Sam couldn't do anything to be worth keeping, and any second now he'd order Sam to get out, or pull out a shotgun, or turn the car around back to camp.

He'd fucked it all up like everyone had told him he would, because he was  _useless_ , couldn't hold Dean's interest for twenty-four hours. The one good thing he'd ever been offered in his life, for which he'd waited for years, and of course he'd lost it in record time.

He almost didn't recognize the sensation of his throat closing up. It had been so many years since he'd cried—without hours of pain first, without a cock down his throat and a guard sneering above him—he couldn't believe it was happening now, in front of Dean. But this was the only thing in his life he had dared to hope for, and from the day he'd allowed himself to believe Dean would keep his word and take him away, he'd reminded himself it wouldn't be forever—just a few weeks, maybe. But he'd never thought he'd fuck it up  _this_ fast.

And he still didn't know what had gone wrong.

Sobs worked their way out of him, shaking his shoulders, but he never made a sound—that lesson intact from interrogations and punishment innumerable. He kept his head tucked to his chest, pressing himself into the space between the door and seat.

"Sam," Dean breathed, something like anguish in his tone that Sam couldn't comprehend. Dean didn't touch him, though. Sam didn't expect him to.

A moment later, Dean eased the car back on the road. Sam waited for the inevitable U-turn, but a mile on, Dean only said, "We'll be home soon."


	2. Chapter 2

The drive to Boulder was long—even after Dean apparently decided that the silence wasn’t helping either of them and put in a tape—but Sam couldn’t find it in himself to care. The longer they stayed there, side by side in the Impala with the feel of the engine humming in his bones, the more and more Sam could force himself to believe that he had a chance. That Dean, against all logic and previous experience, was going to give him another day, maybe more than one, to prove that Sam was worth dragging out of Freak Camp.

They stopped every few hours to fuel up, use the bathroom, and get drinks. Sam hated getting out of the car, never sure if there were some ASC checkpoint in the area where Dean was going to dump him, but that never happened. Usually he just followed Dean to the bathroom—dirtier, but less crowded than the Freak Camp bathrooms had been, and unnervingly without cameras—and then stood behind him while Dean paid for his coke or candy bar, or whatever else he wanted.

“Get what you want,” he’d told Sam—without looking at him—the first time they stopped, but Sam hadn’t had the foggiest idea what that meant. Besides, he wasn’t hungry. Even that one meal with Dean at the diner and the muffin at breakfast was more than he usually ate in two or three days, and his stomach knew better than to start demanding more food at this point. Really, the only thing he wanted was to know how badly he had fucked it up with Dean. At this point in the past, if he had failed to satisfy anyone—whether that was a hunter, the Director, a guard, or some real stranger—he would have been slapped upside the head at the very least, maybe chained to the floor and beaten or whipped or branded. And that only if the Director wasn’t feeling creative.

Usually the Director was creative. But Dean…Dean did nothing, and Sam was almost blanking out just to keep control over his instinctive terror. Because this  _mattered_ , like doing whatever the Director wanted mattered, and he couldn’t escape the feeling that because Dean wasn’t telling him to do  _anything_ , Sam was just fucking it up more and more.

He had assumed when Dean got him out that he would have a grace period, that Dean would tell him what to do, train him, and accept that there would be mistakes in the first few days because Sam was so damned stupid.

Now he suspected that he wasn’t going to get instructions and he wasn’t going to get a grace period. Dean was just going to do what he always did and expect Sam to do what was required. But Sam didn’t have one clue what he should do, except that he had probably fucked it up already, badly. They hadn't turned around yet, and Sam desperately wanted to take that as a sign that he still had a chance, but he couldn’t quite believe that. More likely, Dean wanted to make sure that he was a screw-up before he took Sam back. And for once in his life, Sam didn’t think he would be safe from making a mistake by keeping his mouth shut and his head down. Not that he had always been safe doing that, but he felt like being silent wasn't just unsatisfying to Dean, but the wrong thing to do.

At the first couple of stops Sam did his best not to look at anything, not to notice anything—he suspected that there was  _food_ contained in all those bright plastic packages, and he really didn’t want to give his stomach any ideas when he was doing just fine with what he’d had last night and this morning—and just silently watch while Dean paid for the gas and bought snacks.

Dean gave him a funny look after the second stop, and Sam had to fight the urge to run. Or to drop to his knees and beg. But he didn't because there was a real—the cashier—watching, and, given Dean’s reaction to his begging earlier, that would be the worst thing to do.

When they left the store, small bell above the door chiming cheerily, Sam was tempted—briefly, wildly—to try begging anyway, just to see if he could get some kind of reaction out of Dean. Even knowing what would finally earn him a boot to the balls would be a welcome relief to the feeling that he was falling and Special Research was at the bottom.

He forced the thought away and settled himself in his corner of the Impala’s front seat. There at least he could watch the passing scenery and let his fear and worry fade into his mental background.

At the third stop, Dean bought two cokes, a bag of M&Ms, and an Almond Joy candy bar. He turned and, before Sam quite realized what was going on, shoved all four items at Sam. Sam felt unnervingly clumsy as his hands closed around the two big bottles of soda and the chocolate.

“Think you can get all that, Sam?” Dean said, smiling tightly into his eyes.

Sam swallowed. He would carry some of it in his mouth if he had to. Dean was letting him  _do_  something. “S-sure, Dean,” he said. “I’ve got it.”

Dean nodded. “Good.”

Sam followed him out of the gas station convenience store and barely twitched when Dean held the Impala's door open. He probably didn’t want to risk Sam dropping his soda.

When they were settled in the Impala, Dean grabbed one of the bottles of coke and the M&M’s, leaving Sam unsure what he should do with the last soda and the candy bar. He stared at them worriedly. If he just held onto them, the soda would get warm and the candy bar would melt. But he wasn’t sure where he could put them so that Dean would be able to reach them easily when he wanted them.

“Those are for you,” Dean said, ripping open the M&M’s and tossing seven or eight into his mouth before setting the big bag on the seat between them. He slid the keys into the Impala’s ignition. “Well, the soda is. I claim half the candy bar.” He glanced over, and he still looked a little strained, but Sam felt a big part of himself ease up just seeing Dean smile again. Maybe Sam hadn’t fucked everything up too much.

And then he realized that Dean had  _given him food_  and he had to look down for a second.

It was like when they were kids and Dean coming to camp had always meant that there would be a candy bar, or a piece of crushed pie, or gum, or some other esoteric real-person food that to Sam tasted like a piece of heaven. It almost hurt to remember the time when being with Dean had been the best thing in the world, a time when because he was with Dean he didn’t have to be afraid of anything, because Dean would take care of him.

Dean had always taken care of him. Of all the reals in Sam’s life, Dean was the one that he had never needed to be afraid of.

Maybe he should try not to be afraid now. That went against a lifetime of being a monster and six months of thorough training, but by those standards he had fucked up already.

Sam’s hands shook a little when he twisted the cap off the soda, like he had seen Dean do, but he took a long drink of it without Dean telling him. And then he promptly choked when it fizzed down his throat.

Dean looked at him, eyes wide and alarmed. “Sam, are you—“

Sam coughed a couple more times, and then fumbled the cap back on. He liked the flavor. He just hadn’t expected the  _fizz_.

“’Sokay,” he choked out. “Bubbles.” He could feeling them crawling up his nose. How fucking weird. Not  _painful_ , just  _weird_.

Dean stared at him for a second, and then started laughing. It was a little choked, filled with more relief than humor, but it made Sam smile, really smile, for the first time since they left Rosie's diner. Sam's smile seemed to make Dean relax, seemed to suck half the tension out of him, a tension that Sam had instinctively believed meant trouble for him. 

“Damn, Sammy,” Dean said, wiping his eyes. “Yeah, I suppose you wouldn’t know about the carbonation, would you?”

“No,” Sam said, and then, very daring, took another sip. It was better this time, when he expected the bubbles. Still weird, but at least he wasn’t choking.

The rest of the drive to Boulder was…better.  _Good_. Sam still wasn’t sure what to do when they stopped, couldn’t quite figure out what he was supposed to do with his hands, his eyes, his feet, but he managed to answer when Dean talked to him (“Ever had beef jerky, Sam?” “No, Dean.” “Well, we better try it. Enough salt to keep the both of us well preserved”) and go to the bathroom with Dean. By the time they reached the outskirts of Boulder, Sam could almost believe that he wasn’t going back to Freak Camp. Not today. Not now.

Maybe tonight. Sam's stomach twisted a little every time he thought about stopping, about walking with Dean into another room with another pair of beds. He had  _no fucking idea_ how he had messed up the last time, and there could only be a limited number of times that Dean would forgive him. Inexplicably, Dean  _had_ forgiven him this time, so he had to believe that there was still a chance, that maybe tonight Dean would tell him what to do, how he had fucked up. The Director…

Sam forced his mind away from the Director's cool, implacable voice, away from  _tonight_ , and focused on the here-and-now. He didn’t know what was going to happen, speculation would never help— _stupid dog, you really thought you could guess what I required this evening?_ —and he had a whole world of new experiences, vistas and sensations to experience right now.

He watched the rugged mountains covered in thick, dark green trees slide past the Impala’s window in an always-changing green, tan, and brown blur beneath the brilliantly blue sky. He felt the way the Impala shifted gears, slowing down as Dean eased up for curves and speeding up to pass “blue-haired road hogs.” 

But more than anything else, Sam must have spent at least half an hour just watching Dean from under his bangs, the way the sunlight lit up the curves of his face and brought out the jewel-green in his eyes. Sam soaked in the sight as Dean kept his eyes on the road and hummed softly along with the low-playing cassette, glancing now and then in Sam’s direction or munching one-handed on whatever snacks they’d gotten at the last stop.

He had seen sunlight and Dean’s hair before, but now, when the rocks and the sky and mountains passing made his eyes water and his head spin, he could watch Dean through the corner of his eye, and that sight grounded him, made him feel safe, awestruck and light-headed. The sun outside of Freak Camp gave off a different light entirely, and Dean outside of Freak Camp…

Sam took another deep breath and pushed any other thoughts far away, where they couldn’t hurt what he had here and now.

When they finally reached Boulder, the sun was creeping behind the mountains, and Sam was distracted from the tan of Dean's neck by the houses, the buildings, and the  _shops_.

He knew what they were, from reading and researching, but he had never seen one in _real life_ , never been close enough to get out of the Impala and touch one before.

Unconsciously, Sam clenched his hand around the Impala’s armrest in the door, fingers digging so hard into the vinyl that they started to go numb before he noticed and hastily let go, afraid to leave a mark on Dean's car.

 _Too many things, places, details, possibilities_ , a panicked little voice in the back of his head hissed.  _How the fuck can you manage all of that? Understand and account for all of that? When Dean isn’t telling you what to do and you have to figure it all out yourself? There’s no way…_

He told the little voice to shut up and let himself blank out a little. Just a little. Not so much that he wouldn’t be able to respond the second Dean told him to do anything, the second he demanded anything of him— _please God, want me, use me_ —but enough that the buildings and the streets and the  _reals_ teeming in them went away for a little bit. The world narrowed down to the hum of the Impala and Dean’s solid, warm presence next to him. That was a good world, more than enough for Sam. So much better than a cocoon of blankets or the memory of Becca's arms that wouldn’t really keep him warm or safe from the guards. 

He was so calm, so focused on  _Dean_ and the  _Impala_ that when they stopped, he practically had to pull himself out from a trance.

“Hey, Sammy, wake up, we’re here.” Dean’s hand was on his arm, not even shaking him awake—Kayla had shaken him a couple times when he had needed to be  _up fast_ and a wound or concussion had kept him from reacting quite as fast as he needed to—but just touching him gently.

Sam knew that he would always have to leave the safe places in his head where the fear went away, but, all things considered, having Dean touch him on the arm and call his name wasn’t so bad of a way to wake up in reality.

This time, Dean gave him one of his duffels, the lighter one—Sam could tell just by looking, even in the twilight—cautiously, as though he wasn’t sure if Sam would take it or not, and didn’t want to force the issue.

Sam took it and smiled back. This was already different from last night. Different in Freak Camp had always been terrifying, but last night had been…well, he wasn’t sure that different would be too bad in comparison. He was sure it could get worse—it could always get worse—but if it turned out to be another night exactly like last night, he wasn’t sure he would be able to keep it together. Feeling the fuck-up coming again and having absolutely no ability to stop it would be the real nightmare. Now, at least, he could hold onto the moment, the feel of the strap over his shoulder, the way Dean’s shoulders moved beneath his shirt as Sam followed him through the gate, the wooden front door, and up the stairs. 

On the landing, Dean fumbled with the keys in the door and pushed it open, clearly expecting Sam to go through first.

Sam set his jaw and walked in, sliding the bag to his back so that if there were traps it would be less likely for Dean's belongings to be damaged. He tried to look everywhere without appearing to look at anything, and kept his hands spread at his sides, ready to move instantly between Dean and anything—monster, ghost, human, booby trap—that might fly out at him.

When nothing happened, and Dean came in behind him to shut and lock the door, it was almost anticlimactic.

Dean gave him a funny look before switching on the light. “Well, here it is, Sammy. Home sweet home. I know it, uh, needs a lot of work, but I hope you like it.”

Sam blinked in the sudden light—Freak Camp had either had nothing but light or nothing but dark, and the guards had always controlled which one the monsters got at any particular moment. It was strange to see Dean flip a switch and imagine that he, Sam, might be able to do the same thing. If Dean would let him, at least. If Sam got up the courage to ask.

He followed Dean out of the narrow entryway, into a large, off-white room. In the opposite wall were one solid door and one glass door, both closed; in the left wall were two windows covered in blinds, and on the right a half-wall separated another room, and next to that a passage led somewhere else. In the middle of this room were a small wooden table with two padded chairs near the half-wall, a sofa in front of the two doors, and a television across from the sofa, with a bookshelf against the wall farthest away. The carpets were a worn white-gray, and the only decoration was a single poster, bearing the legend METALLICA across the bottom tacked up on the middle of the left wall. 

"So, uh, grand tour -" Dean clapped his hands. Sam started, then cringed mentally for doing so. Dean paused before continuing. Maybe he hadn't noticed, or maybe he had just been breathing or collecting his thoughts and Sam  _couldn't tell_. "This is the living room, and right around the corner is the kitchen." He walked over to the open doorway that led into the kitchen, then looked back at Sam expectantly. Sam felt his heartrate pick up again— _already too slow, fuck, not anticipating at all_ —and stepped quickly to his side. Dean paused, eyes falling to the bag Sam was still clutching to his shoulder. "Just throw that down anywhere, man."

Sam didn't think he meant that literally—Dean's  _possessions_  were in that bag—so he lowered it carefully to the carpet. He must have still done it wrong, because Dean looked slightly unsettled in a way Sam had never imagined Dean could be. He had just begun to brace himself when Dean started talking again, ignoring Sam's lapse without giving any correction  _again_.

"So, yeah, kitchen—kinda cramped, I know, but it's got a working dishwasher, stove, and fridge, which is more than a lot of places, I can tell you that. This way—" Dean turned down the hall, and Sam moved after him, step by step. "Bathroom here, laundry room right after—and that's pretty sweet, I gotta say, not having to worry about the weirdos in laundromats taking off with your boxers—this is my bedroom." Dean reached toward the partially open door at the end of the hall, then stopped, lowering his hand stiffly to his side. "Yeah, well, back this way—" He pushed past Sam, toward the living room, suddenly enough that Sam jumped back, trying to get his back against a wall, before his brain caught up with the instinct to dodge the threat. When he remembered that he didn't fucking deserve to dodge Dean—though it had probably been good to get out of his way—Sam took another shaky breath and followed Dean back to the living room, where Dean was standing next to the wooden door, now open. "This is your room, Sam."

Sam stopped at the doorway beside Dean. Up until now, he'd been following well enough—at least, he could have repeated everything Dean said if asked, and he hoped memorizing the name for each room would be enough for now, that he could figure out the purpose and rules of each along the way—but now he couldn't suppress the cold terror of complete incomprehension. This was clearly important to Dean, and Sam didn't have a clue what he meant.  _His room?_  Would he stay there when Dean didn't want to see him? Was he going to be fucked there ( _when when when_ )? Was he in charge of keeping it clean?  _Please don't do this to me, please just tell me, Dean._

And this was clearly not the reaction Dean had been expecting. Sam's idiocy fucking everything up  _again_. Dean was watching him, and though Sam couldn't bring himself to look Dean in the face, he could still feel his—he didn't know what to call it, but he knew it wasn't good, that Dean wasn't happy with him. The terror slid into his throat, became unbearable, and Sam was just about to crumple to his knees and  _beg_ Dean to be patient with his stupidity, please give Sam the mercy he didn't deserve, just a little and Sam would swear he'll pay him back tenfold—when Dean spoke. Words could have made Sam okay, but the note of desperation in Dean's voice actually made him  _listen_ , helped him break out of his rote response. 

"We could switch, if you want the other one with the big bathroom—I just grabbed it just, because, but it won't be a big deal to switch. Whatever you want, Sam. I know this one doesn't look great yet, but I figured we could go out and you could pick out what you want to put in it, instead of me, 'cause I don't know—yeah, so, it's just, up to you, man."

Head tucked down, Sam listened. He still didn't understand, but Dean sounded—not angry at all. It was almost like he was worried, and that didn't ease Sam's fears, but it broke the terror into manageable pieces, small enough that he could speak, look, smile, and pretend that this was all okay, because that seemed to be what Dean needed right now, and anything Dean needed Sam was there to provide. 

"This is fine, Dean." He sneaked a peek into the room, at the huge, neatly made bed and chest of drawers. It couldn't possibly be  _for_ him, but whatever Dean was worried about, he shouldn't be. "This is great," he said, more firmly.

When Dean let out a sigh, Sam glanced up and saw the unmistakable relief on Dean's face.

"Well...awesome. That's awesome. And we'll go out and get more stuff stuff so you can make it however you like." Dean ran a hand through his hair and blew out his breath again. "It's...good to have you here, Sam. I'm really glad you are."

Before Sam could feel good about that, Dean moved forward, almost like he was going to kiss him again, and Sam had to fight down twin surges of excitement and terror. Last Night had started with a kiss too.

Maybe he did something then, maybe he looked less than ready, for Dean caught himself and backed up.

“How about I make dinner, Sam? I mean, I’m not that great. Got better since me and Dad…yeah, well, let’s just say that credit card scams aren’t as fun when you know the Campbells are looking over your shoulder.”

Sam nodded and smiled with very little idea of what Dean was talking about. But that was okay, because he was following him to the half-wall beyond which was the narrow kitchen. Sam saw metal doors and wooden cupboards, but couldn't really get a good look before Dean smiled at him and motioned to the table through the open partition. 

“Why don’t you take a seat while I forage? I’m not sure where I put the pizza pan, and this kitchen's not really big enough for both of us not to run into each other."

It was almost a physical relief to be told what to do. Sam hadn't been active that day, just riding in the Impala and soaking in Dean's presence, but he was bone-deep tired, like he'd been cold too long with not enough food. Probably it was the constant struggle to be something more than a crawling, whimpering monster for Dean, and the constant fear that he was failing. 

So Sam sat, feeling his heart rate slowing slightly. He was used to tables. Tables featured in interrogation rooms, the least painful Director sessions, and those precious meetings with Dean. He felt, for once, safe and grounded, at the table.

And then Dean tossed two cheap plastic plates over the dividing wall, the too-loud sound of them hitting the table filling the mostly empty apartment, and Sam was no longer safe, no longer calm. A monster might eat huddled at a table with other monsters, might use a plate with them, but he did not belong or deserve to sit with real people.

If Dean had been the Director, Sam would have known what to do. He would have left the table, maybe thrown himself away before the guard could come in and move him. But Dean had told him—asked, did that mean the same thing?—to sit, so Sam sat and fought to keep his breathing steady, fought not to shake, desperately reminding himself that Dean would tell him what to do. Dean would not bring him back to Freak Camp just because he stayed at a table too long.

But the longer Dean didn’t look at him, just kept moving through the kitchen like earlier—was he really unconcerned? was this some kind of test?—the less Sam could hold himself still in the chair, mimicking calm.

~

Dean was trying not to look at Sam, partly because the pizza pan was goddamned hard to find (how many places could it fit, seriously?) but mostly because that seemed to make Sam uncomfortable—he'd have to be a lot more oblivious than he was not to notice Sam jumping at  _everything_ —but Dean kicked himself when he looked over and saw Sam hunched in his chair, practically  _shaking_ , staring at the plates on the table like they were going to bite him.

Dean was around the divide in a flash, kneeling by Sam's side, not sure what had happened, what he could do, but not wanting to loom over him either. "Sam, what's wrong?"

~

Having Dean close to him felt good, with Dean looking at him and not angry that Sam hadn't moved, but it was so wrong that he was lower when Sam  _knew_ that  _he_ should be kneeling by the table, not Dean. He slid to the edge of his chair, instinct driving him that far before Dean’s hands fell on his knees. Any farther and he would be throwing himself into Dean's arms which he wouldn't—shouldn't—do. Sam swallowed. "I don’t know.” _I don’t know what you want or what I should do. I don’t know how long you’ll keep me, or what will send me back. And you won’t tell me._  “Please just tell me, and I’ll…”

Dean touched his face, thumb brushing his cheek, fingertips grazing over his hair. Sam shut his mouth at the familiar touch—only two days he'd felt it, and it was already familiar and as necessary as eating; Sam could go without that touch, like he could go without food, but it  _hurt_  to be without. Dean touched him like it was a miracle that Sam was there. Like Sam was something special, something  _real_. “Tell you what, Sam?”

 _What I should do so you'll touch me forever, fuck me, keep me_. “What I should do. I’m sorry, Dean, so sorry.”

Dean smiled, but it was tight, not quite real, and Sam felt his nerves rush back, tightening his spine, clenching his stomach. It was last night all over again, and he was going to fuck it up and Dean was going to—

"You're fine, Sam." Only Dean crouching there in front of him, his fingers against the too-hot skin of Sam's face, kept Sam in his chair, kept the panic down. "I don't really need that much help with pizza. I mean, I haven't tried making it  _here_ , you know, though I bought one a couple months ago when I signed the lease for the apartment. I used to cook them all the time whenever we had an apartment and Dad was...yeah, well, I'm going to try to do better, you know?  _Cooking_ and stuff.  _Sam_. Talk to me. Anything you want, anything, just say it, Sam, and I'll do my best. I mean, I know that's not always that great, but..." Dean snapped his mouth shut and took a deep, slow breath. "Just tell me, okay? What do you need?"

Sam couldn't process it, couldn't think of anything. He stared down while Dean's hand slid from his cheek to his throat, and felt the  _ohsogood_  sensation of Dean's hand on the bare flesh of his neck warring with the inherent _wrong_ that Dean (his master? a real? a hunter? perfect and so much better than he deserved) was reaching  _up_ to him, a monster, a freak and a worthless—

"You're on the floor," Sam choked out, when his own emotions threatened to break him down faster than even the Director's soft voice. He wanted to blame the fact that he was stupid, that he hadn't slept well, but the truth was that this mattered so much that he could barely think about what he had  _right now_  without being terrified of losing it. Because life always got worse for monsters. It had to. But right now he was with Dean, he was being touched by Dean, and there was only one way that his life could get worse, and that was if this contact, this connection, stopped. And it would, the second Dean realized he was kneeling beneath a  _freak_. He couldn't ask Dean to stand, he couldn't beg to be lower— _I didn't give you permission to beg yet, freak_ —but Dean had told him to say what he needed, and maybe, just maybe Dean would be merciful enough to understand.

Dean laughed. It looked like it hurt. "Yeah," he said. "You wanna come down or should I get up?"

 _Thank you God_ , Sam thought, as he slid off his chair, and to the floor where he belonged, where Dean was.

~

When Sam just  _dropped_  from his chair—like he was desperate to get off of it, like he’d been shot—Dean couldn’t help but flinch back slightly. He expected…fuck, he didn’t know what he’d expected. Maybe for Sam to laugh at him and tell him to sit in a chair, to stop swooning like a tragic lover, or maybe to drop down next to him like he had when they were kids, nervous but not like this.

When Sam hit the floor, he didn’t even try to get near Dean, didn’t move close to him. He just knelt, shoulders hunched until his head was well below Dean’s, even when Dean sat back on his heels. Monsters had begged Dean for their lives, and he'd watched as broken civilians wept over their dead loved ones, but he had never seen someone assume such an abject, groveling, demeaning position.

Sam assumed it like it was the most natural thing possible, like it was a relief to be sitting on the floor with his spine bent.

A little voice in Dean’s head was panicking, saying nothing but  _what the fuck? what the fuck!_  over and over again, like repeating it often enough would give him some kind of answer, would give him back the Sam he had known when they were kids. Fuck, he’d take the Sam he had left in Freak Camp six months ago, who had been tense and half-starved but who had smiled so much more easily, who hadn’t flinched at  _everything_ Dean did.

The worst thing, really, was that this was still Sam. Same smile, same face. Same expression in his eyes when he looked at Dean, like Dean was the best thing in his world. But at the same time he was a broken stranger, someone who expected…horrible things. Dean couldn’t even—wouldn’t even—

 _What the fuck did they do to you, Sam?_  he thought, angry enough to break something and also sick with the knowledge that this was all his fault, everything that had happened to Sam was his fucking fault as much as if he’d been the one beating the joy out of him.

And then Sam looked up at him from his twisted, groveling position and smiled that same tender, vulnerable, oh-so-breakable smile that broke Dean’s heart when he was just handing Sam a bag of chips or putting in another Metallica tape. Right now, right here, with Sam basically cowering beneath his—fuck,  _their_ —kitchen table, it made the bile rise in Dean’s throat.

He reached over and pulled Sam up, close to his body, and wrapped his arms around him. Not because he necessarily wanted to hug Sam or crowd him or kiss him—though he had wanted all those things just in the brief time they had been in the apartment, had had to remind himself constantly that Sam wasn’t ready for any of that, might not want it, and how the fuck would Dean be able to tell if he wanted it or just wouldn’t say no to anything?—but because if he didn’t touch Sam right now, if he didn’t stop seeing that smile combined with the way his body said he had absolutely no hope that Dean wouldn’t hit him, then Dean was going to punch something (the floor, the table, the chair,  _never_ Sam) or throw up over the floor.

Sam didn’t come to his arms like hot chicks or guys usually did. Or even, fuck, Dad, though the last time they’d hugged—

Yeah, Sam’s body was tense, like he was shocked that Dean was holding him, couldn’t understand. And, fuck, for all Dean knew, he didn’t have the least clue and just thought that Dean was—

Dean cut off any thoughts but the pressure of Sam in his arms, the smell of his hair as Dean buried his face by Sam’s shoulder, feeling the knobs of vertebrae under one hand and the meatier flesh of his thigh under the other. Felt Sam’s breath against his ear and the even rise and fall of his breathing—even as he registered how each deep even breath, coupled with the wire-tight tension in Sam’s body, bespoke more panic than any sound he could make.

Sam’s terror was almost enough to make Dean forget that it was Sam’s body in his arms, his Sam. But parts of him remembered that he was certainly interested in the soft skin of Sam’s throat, in kisses and more.

The fact that he could be even slightly aroused by the terrified, broken, half-starved, victimized boy in his arms just gave Dean another, deeper reason to hate himself.

“Shhhh, it’s okay,” Dean said, focusing on Sam’s fear, on his malnutrition, on anything to burn down and drive away any thoughts—and physical responses—that would terrify Sam more. “You’re okay.”

Sam just sat there, stiff in his arms, and it was horrible. Dean let his hand rub at Sam's back, feeling every rib— _remember these, Dean Winchester, all your fucking fault_ —hoping to ease some of the tension, to find a way to get out of the hug without pushing Sam away. That was something he would never, could never, do. “I’m going to do my best, Sam. I promise. I promise.”

After a couple minutes of being held, Sam relaxed. It was almost worse, because Dean could tell—he was close enough to hear Sam’s heartbeat in his throat, feel every muscle in his back—that Sam wasn’t  _relaxing_ , exactly, so much as he had finally forced himself to go limp and accepting in Dean’s arms. Dean could hear the blood beating harder through his veins.

Accepting was not relaxing. It was not the same as willing. And Dean—every fucking bit of him—had better damn well remember that.

“Hey Sammy,” he said, trying to keep cheer and ease in his voice, for Sam’s sake. “You hungry?”

Sam’s head twitched, which Dean decided to interpret as a yes because, fuck it, he didn’t know how to ask and actually get an answer.

“Me too,” he said. “Here’s the plan for tonight, low stress. I'm gonna—we’re going to cook up the frozen pizzas in the fridge. I’ve got pepperoni and sausage, so you’ll get to figure out which one you like better.”  _Please tell me what I should do_ , Sam had said, and Dean hated that; he wanted Sam to do what  _Sam_ wanted, but he had no idea how to say that, no idea what to do to prove to Sam what it even meant. Dean swallowed. “And then we’re both going to sit at the table. I don’t want you to…we’re equals, Sam. I mean, I’m a little older,” Dean grinned a little, but the statement didn’t even qualify as a joke and his expression died right away. “Anything I do, you can do, okay, Sam? I mean, you don’t  _have_ to, I don’t want to…to force you to do stuff you don’t want to do, but we’re together. I’m at a table, you can be at the table. And the same goes for me, too—if you’re on the floor I’m gonna come right down there with you. You got that, Sam?”

“Y-yes, Dean,” Sam whispered.

And that fucking hurt too.

"Up we go, " Dean said, aware even as he said it that it wasn't something a guy like him would usually be saying to any sixteen-year-old. It sounded more like something that parents said when their toddler skinned a knee. Sounded like something that Mom might have said.... He pulled back from the hug, but only enough to stand and pull Sam up with him. Sam didn't struggle, just looked confused and a little lost.

They were eye to eye, the same height. The same. Dean had to remember that, because it didn't look like Sam was going to be able to believe that on his own for a while. Dean felt lost himself, not at all qualified.

But he was the best Sam was going to get, and he would damn well make it work.

It was weird and disturbing, making a frozen pizza with Sam following him around like a desperate puppy or a lost five-year-old. The kitchen wasn't exactly big. As Dean had suspected—and fantasized—earlier, they were touching almost constantly while looking for the pizza tray and taking out the pizza. He almost whacked Sam in the face opening the freezer door, and he definitely ran into him when when he ripped open the package on the pepperoni pizza and ended up unbalancing, but...it worked. Sam ducked the door, and only looked nervous for a second before actually grinning—just a flash—at Dean's, "Fuck, sorry, damn door." Then when Dean stumbled into him, Sam leaned forward, supporting him, and only once or twice did Dean have to think of boring, unpleasant things—the GED, the last time he'd broken a bone chasing some monster in the Appalachians—to control his body's reaction to having Sam _right there_ , a soft heat against his shoulders, hips, those eyes locking on him every time he opened his mouth.

Dean gave up on finding the pizza tray—he'd bought it because it had seemed like a good idea at the time, and Chad, the guy at the store, had been really persuasive, but the directions on the pepperoni pizza said they could just put it in the oven, so Dean did. Then they waited, the second sausage pizza thawing on the stove. It seemed awkward to Dean, just to stand in front of an oven waiting for the food to be done, like it was a jack-in-the-box about to give them a prize, but he didn't want to suggest that Sam sit down, or sit down himself.

When it was done—a little burnt around the edges—Dean slid the pizza out (thank God Chad had mentioned oven mitts). "Sit down, Sam," he said. "I don't want to dump cheese on you." 

Sam jumped back and took his original chair. Dean had to clamp down hard on the residual rage that just seeing Sam in that chair left him, before setting the pizza on the table.

Dean let himself just rest for a second. Cooking was exhausting, and being so aware of Sam every second was exhausting, and he was going to pretend they were letting the pizza cool and not that something was really really messed up in his life and he didn't really know what he was doing.

Of course, stillness didn't last long. Dean's stomach growled, so he opened his eyes, smiled at Sam who was _watching_ him—as though the apartment could be firebombed and Sam wouldn't move unless he saw Dean reacting first—and reached for a slice. He almost burned his fingers off. "Dammit," he said, shaking his hand. Sam jumped when he swore, his eyes widening slightly, but relaxed and almost smiled when Dean grinned ruefully at him. "That pizza is  _hot_ ," Dean said. "Be careful, okay, Sam?"

Sam nodded and watched while Dean used a hastily retrieved fork to scoop a piece of the soggy, cheesy pepperoni pizza onto his plate.

Dean got a sick, niggling feeling in his stomach when Sam didn't even reach for his fork or make any move toward the pizza, but he ignored it. Just used his own fork to put the most pepperoni-laden slice of pizza on Sam's plate. He couldn't decide if the way Sam's smile widened—like Dean had just done the most wonderful thing in the world—made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside or just increased the queasiness.

Dean decided that this was another thing he couldn't think about right now, and started to eat.

Halfway through his first slice, he acknowledged to himself that Sam hadn't eaten anything. When he picked up his second, he did his best to smile. "You can eat it, you know, it's not too hot any more."

Sam started slowly, cautiously, eating about half of his slice in the time it took Dean to eat his second. When Dean helped himself to a third, he put a second on Sam's plate. He wasn't sure what this was, if Sam didn't think that Dean wanted him to eat, or if he was just being careful. Dean knew that if you didn't eat for a while—he'd gotten lost in the woods once—if you ate food too fast, it would just come right back up. And Sam certainly hadn't been eating like a king in Freak Camp.  _Maybe_ , a little voice inside Dean murmured,  _maybe he didn't eat anything at all, and you just let it keep happening._

Sam ate a little faster with the second piece on his plate, so Dean made sure that every time he got himself a slice, he put another on Sam's plate. Sure, he was still a slice ahead, but that was better than watching while Sam ate one slice and Dean finished off the entire pizza—which he suspected would be the other possibility.

After the last pieces of pizza had disappeared, Dean decided he wasn't going to ask if Sam was still hungry. Dean was still hungry, and Dean had eaten one more piece.

He got up, then glanced back at Sam. “Want to hang out in the kitchen while I make the next pizza?” he asked. He thought that it was pushing it a little to say that Sam could help him  _make_ it when all Dean had to do was rip the plastic off and put it in the oven, but he wanted it to be clear that he didn’t mind if Sam followed him. That he seriously did want Sam close, he just didn’t want to accidentally push him into the oven.

Sam bounced up right away, as Dean knew he would.

Making the second pizza was easier, because Dean had the hang of it and Sam stayed farther away, leaning against the cupboard. It hurt, the way he kind of leaned away from Dean, but Dean figured Sam also didn’t want to be accidentally pushed into an oven—or understood that there was only so much space next to the stove.

When the timer went off, Dean took out the pizza—slightly more burnt than the last one, probably pre-heating or some voodoo curse or something, what the hell did he know about any of this?—and Sam hurried back to the table.

This time, Dean put two pieces of pizza on Sam’s plate right away just to ease the gnawing feeling that he was cheating him. It wasn’t like Dean would starve to death because he was missing one piece of pizza or something, and Sam…yeah, maybe Sam could.

Sam looked at the pizza, looked at Dean, and then ate, finally losing an edge of tension that had been in his shoulders through the first pizza. So subtle that Dean hadn’t noticed before, but now that it was gone...hell.

“You can help yourself to pizza, too,” Dean said. “That’s cool, Sam.”

Sam stopped smiling, stopped eating, just looked him in the eye for a second. Then he looked back down to his plate and picked up the slice. “Okay, Dean.”

From then on, Sam ate, not fast, not slow, just at about the same pace as Dean. He never reached for his own piece of pizza, but Dean put slices on his plate anyway.

When the second pizza was gone, Dean leaned back, satisfied with the food but not with how most things had gone tonight. Still, he had to admit, it had gone better than the previous night.

Even just thinking that made him wince. Not much from last night could have gone worse. But tonight…tonight was better. Dean would take  _better_  when he could get it.

~

Sam was cautiously willing to believe that this night was going well. He couldn’t wrap his head around a lot that Dean had said— _I’m gonna come right down there with you, Sammy_ —and didn’t dare try, afraid that most of it would be taken away, but what he could grasp and what he could face could be boiled down into one major fact and three minor:

He was with Dean.

He was warm, fed, and Dean hadn’t so much as slapped him. Dean was still with him, and Sam had hope that it was going to stay that way. Maybe for a while. Maybe longer.

When Dean took his last bite of pizza and Sam quickly swallowed his own, they both just sat for a second, staring at the empty plates and  _digesting_ —food still so damn good that Sam couldn’t believe that Dean had given it to him, so many pieces of pizza that his stomach was  _full_ , full for two days straight—absorbing the silence of the apartment and the distant sounds of the neighborhood (cars, motorcycles, voices, music) slowly filtering through the walls. 

Finally, Dean shook off his reverie and picked up their plates. Sam nervously but quickly grabbed the glasses and the dirty cardboard tray that had been under the pizza and followed Dean to the kitchen.

He wasn’t sure that Dean would want him to help or touch or follow, but Sam felt safer in some presumption, now. No, he wouldn’t dare initiate contact with Dean without express permission—he was so fucking lucky that Dean wasn’t the Director, or even a guard, or he doubted he’d still have hands right now—but Dean hadn’t beaten the shit out of him when Sam caught him in the kitchen, hadn’t said anything when Sam brought a spare oven mitt to the table to put the pizza on top of (so it wouldn’t hurt Dean’s table), so Sam was cautiously testing what would make Dean angry, what would earn him a whipping, a blow, a sharp word,  _anything_.

So far, disturbingly, nothing had. But Sam had faith that Dean wasn’t just saving up all his transgressions for a new kind of Wednesday session, that Dean really would tell him when he was being too much of a freak.

The smile Sam got when he came into the kitchen with the cardboard made him feel almost dizzy with relief.

“Glasses go in the sink, and you can fold up the cardboard, shove it in the trash,” Dean said, nodding at the bin where he had put the plastic wrap.

Sam carefully folded the cardboard and tucked it into the garbage while Dean dumped their plates in the sink with the glasses. He felt a twinge throwing away something that still had crumbs and cheese residue—three days ago he would have begged for permission to eat those scraps, maybe the cardboard too—but it was minor compared to the complete satisfaction of being full and being with Dean, and being  _happy_. Not the same kind of happy he had felt yesterday before everything had gone to hell, but happy nonetheless.

Even thinking about  _yesterday_ stripped away a lot of the good feelings from the pizza and Dean’s smile. But before that thought could even fully form, Sam turned around and Dean was there, smiling at him, expression not quite happy, not quite satisfied, but still familiar, because it was the same way Dean had always smiled at him.

Dean raised one hand to Sam’s face, hesitated, and then rested his fingers lightly on Sam’s cheek. Sam closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, the part of him terrified of making the same mistake of last night—and he  _still_ didn’t know exactly what it had been—temporarily overwhelmed by the part of him saying  _DeanDeanDean_  like it was a chant to keep all the bad things in his life away for just a few minutes longer. A few days,  _please_.

Dean’s hand caressed his cheek, and it was better than anything he had ever dared hope for. Sam took a shaky breath—it felt so  _good_ —and then forced his eyes open, his face up to Dean’s, because Dean liked him to look him in the eye and Sam would. He  _would_.

Dean’s expression was tender, and sad, but there was a bit of happy in it too, and Sam was glad that Dean didn’t look miserable, that even when Sam fucked up it couldn't make Dean  _sad_ for long.

“Hey, Sam,” Dean said, and it was like he had trouble forming the words right, like some of the worries plaguing Sam were eating their way into Dean too. “I’m…I think we’ve had a really busy day. I bet we could both use some shut-eye before we figure out what else we need around here." 

Sam tensed. That sounded like last night. Last night when he had fucked everything up.

“If you want me…” he started, hating the way his breathing faltered, afraid it would make Dean think that he wasn’t willing and ready. It was just that he was terrified that he would do the wrong thing  _again_ , and break this beautiful, brittle chance Dean had offered. “I don’t have to. We could… _anything_ , Dean. If you want…”

Dean moved his fingers over Sam’s lips. Gentle, undemanding, not like a gag or anything, but Sam  _shut up_ nonetheless. “Not tonight, Sam,” he said. “Tonight, let’s just…” He sighed, looked down for a second, and when he looked up he looked both happier and a bit rueful. “This is all I want to do with you tonight.”

Then Dean’s hand slid around to cradle the back of Sam’s head, and his other hand moved to his waist, his lips covering Sam’s, and it was all Sam could do not to clutch at Dean, to bruise him, to keep this wonderful, wonderful thing, Dean’s body against his and his mouth over his and his hands on Sam. 

When they broke apart, Sam couldn’t breathe, didn’t want to, and Dean looked ruffled, hot, and really truly, honestly happy. And regretful. "That's all for now," Dean said. "That's all I wanted to show you tonight. Just think about it, Sam."

Then Dean guided Sam gently out of the kitchen and pushed him in the direction of “his” bedroom. 

Sam went, even though the last thing he wanted was to be parted from Dean, to be broken away from those kisses that lit up his whole world, his mouth, his body. But Dean had told him, if not in so many words, that he should go to the bedroom and sleep, and Sam went, even though it hurt when he couldn’t see Dean anymore. He left the door open, so that if Dean reconsidered he wouldn’t think even for a second that Sam wasn’t willing.

The bed was softer than any cot he’d ever slept on, any chair he’d ever touched, or even the breaking room couch. It definitely wasn't meant for a freak, and yet Dean had still pointed him toward it. It would be ungrateful of him to sleep on the floor, but Sam didn’t think he could sleep in that bed. It was the first time in his life he had been in a room without cameras—at least, he couldn't see any, and Dean never wanted their meetings recorded, so why would he put them in his own home?—or without a guard just outside the door. It had yet to sink in that there weren't any other monsters to jump him in the dark, and he couldn't quite process the unfamiliar shapes, scents, noises, and the all-pervasive fear that Dean wasn’t going to fuck him, wasn’t going to keep him, that this was all just a wonderful illusion that would crumble the second he looked away.

Sam didn’t think he would sleep. He wasn’t sure that that the instant he lay down there wouldn’t be a guard come to beat him awake because he was hallucinating during a sleep deprivation test, or maybe Dean would want to claim what was his, and Sam had to be  _ready_.

But the second Sam pulled his legs up on the mattress, letting himself curl into a protective ball, the world went dark, his breathing evened out, and he slept, stomach full, Dean moving quietly in the other room, Freak Camp miles and miles away.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, Dean was up well before Sam, and had no idea what he should be doing. Sure, he could sleep twelve hours or so as well as the next guy, but they’d gone to bed pretty damn early the night before, and…

Dean had to admit that part of what had gotten him out of bed was that he  _couldn’t_  hear anything. What if Sam was gone, hurt, or—worse of all—had never been there. More than once in the months when Dean had been getting the apartment ready—buying all the shit that normal people apparently needed took more time and effort than he had ever expected—he’d sprawled over his big bed and thought about Sam, hoping that tomorrow would be the day, hating the Campbells, generally struggling with how very unreal it felt that busting Sam out of Freak Camp was  _finally_  happening but wasn’t happening at the same time; Sam’s life with Dean—and Dean’s promise—was in the hands of Washington paper-pushers for fuck’s sake.

Now Sam was with him, and Dean felt just as useless against the forces fucking with Sam’s head.

He got up at the crack of dawn because he couldn't sleep anymore and stood at Sam’s door like a complete creeper for about ten minutes before he could assure himself that Sam was breathing behind the wood—finding Sam’s toiletries bag in his duffel last night had made it real, too—then set about finding something to occupy his time.

Sam finally appeared around ten, after Dean had washed last night's dishes, cleaned his guns, dusted—if this kept up he was going to become a goddamned housewife—and finally settled in front of the TV with a big mug of instant coffee. Dean craned his neck around when he heard the door squeak open—he kept meaning to oil it or pound on it or something, though a little voice in his head that said doors  _should_ squeak and give him advance warning when baddies started coming through—and smiled. Sam blinked, and his knuckles were white where they clenched the edge of the door.

“D-did I sleep t-too long?” he asked.

Dean decided to ignore the hesitation in the stutter. “Nope,” he said, taking a swig of coffee. “You needed it, Sam, no problem. You hungry?”

Sam hesitated, and Dean interpreted that as yes. He set his mug down, lowered the volume on the TV, and walked to the kitchen. “I bought Cheerios and Lucky Charms—I figure cereal is always good, yeah?—but we’re going to start with the Lucky Charms because I need sugar.”

Dean took out bowls, glasses, and spoons and was cheered when Sam divided the utensils between their two spots on the table without being told, asked, or nudged. Dean overlooked how Sam glanced at him every time he touched a new object, like he expected…fuck, Dean didn’t want to know. He just put out the milk, orange juice, and cereally goodness and kept smiling at Sam when he sat down. 

Dean didn’t wait for Sam to reach for the cereal. He didn’t think he would, and Dean  _hated_ that, but if it were a choice between spoon-feeding him or Sam not eating, there was no question what Dean would do.

He filled both bowls with Lucky Charms, poured orange juice into both glasses, and then hesitated over the milk. He glanced at Sam, whose eyes were wide and delighted, like they were every time Dean put food on his plate. “Do you like your cereal with milk or plain, Sam?" 

It was a fucking simple question, but Sam froze like Dean had asked him if he wanted fried scorpion for dinner. He nodded stiffly at the bowls. “W-w-what you want, Dean.”

That wasn’t really an answer, but Dean should have known better than to ask. 

Dean poured milk into both bowls—now why would  _that_ surprise Sam, that he was putting it in both?—and decided that the second Sam started feeling more comfortable, relaxing a little bit in this apartment that was _theirs_  and not just Dean's, Dean would start asking him what he wanted and actually pushing to get an answer. He would not just take over Sam’s life because that was easy and seemed to make Sam stop twitching. Sam deserved better than that. Dean would  _ask_. 

But Dean figured that for the time being they both needed a few restrictions, or maybe he’d start asking things that he shouldn’t.

That could wait until after breakfast. Dean sat, nodded at Sam’s spoon, and dug in.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as Sam cautiously picked up his spoon, visibly braced himself to take a bite, and then sagged back into his chair, eyes flickering closed in something like bliss when he crunched into his first supersweet marshmallow.

Dean grinned to himself and let Sam chew for a bit before looking up. “Like it?” he asked. Not that he didn’t know the answer, but he wanted to hear it from Sam and not just read it from his expression. Partly because he wanted Sam to be comfortable enough to tell him these things, and partly because when Sam was filled with this much joy, Dean wanted to hold onto it, wanted to see and hear more of it.

Sam looked up, eyes sober, intent, and for one stomach-dropping moment Dean thought that he wasn’t going to say it, that Dean had read him wrong, or maybe Lucky Charms was such a wonderful experience than Sam wouldn’t want to share it with Dean. “These are really good, Dean. I…thank you. I l-like them a lot.” Sam looked down and filled his spoon with vaguely pink milk. “This is milk? It’s really good. I’m sorry I…I’m sorry. Thank you.”

Dean decided to think about what that response meant later, but he smiled at Sam right away. “That’s good, Sammy. I’m glad. Want some more?”

Sam made another one of those vague motions that Dean decided meant yes, and he refilled both their bowls.

They ate for a while longer, and then Dean cleared his throat. “So, Sam, I’ve been thinking.” He paused to take another bite and chew, ignoring how Sam twitched, tensed, and then visibly forced himself to relax and keep eating cereal. “This is all really new for you, and stuff, I get that. So, here’s what’s going to happen. If I’m going too fast for you, or something happens and you have questions, you ask them, and I’ll do my best to figure it out with you, okay?"

Sam relaxed a little bit more, and Dean felt heartened. So he got to the next part, the part that had been plaguing him all night and that he really didn’t want to bring up, though he knew he had to. Not just because of how nervous and… _pliant_  Sam was, but because of how disastrously their first night had gone and the kinds of expectations Sam seemed to have. They were...

Well, they were sickening, that’s what they were. Maybe even more because on a certain level, they were true.

Dean had to bite the inside of his cheek to force away the image of pulling Sam close and sliding a hand up his shirt, of feeling his body pressed against Dean’s. Of kissing him until he couldn’t see, showing him beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was Dean’s whole world.

Thoughts like that were a big reason Dean had to have this talk.

“I know…this is a big change for you, so I’m going to say this once, a hundred times, as many times as you need it. I’m not going to get rid of you, and getting you out of FREACS wasn’t about you doing anything for me or…to me, or…sex. I want you with me, Sam, until you want to walk away, and there’s nothing you can do that’s going to make me toss you out, or take you back, or  _anything_. Does that make sense?”

Sam had set his spoon down carefully at the beginning of the speech, then watched Dean's face intently, staring so hard that Dean felt almost uncomfortable, like Sam could stare straight through him to all the dirty corners of his mind. At the end, Sam hesitated, took a sharp breath, and then shook his head, hard. He lowered his eyes and his hands twisted together, hard enough to whiten the skin where his fingers dug into each other.

Dean reached over for one of those hands. He thought that he might have to wrestle it out of Sam’s death grip, but they loosened easily at his touch. Once again, Sam looked like Dean had done something miraculous.

“Hey, look at me,” Dean said, and Sam did. Fuck, with that  _look_ again. “I’m not getting rid of you, I swear to God. And I’m not making demands either. We’re gonna keep this strictly PG for a while, until you figure out what you want, what’ll make both of us happy. Got that, Sam?”

Sam licked his lips, and his hand tightened around Dean's. “P-P-PG. What does that…does that m-mean?”

Dean stared at him. "PG, like, movie ratings. You know?"

Sam didn’t know, that was written all over his face. Dean leaned over the table, one hand still wrapped in Sam’s. He put one elbow on the table and his head in that hand and breathed for a moment. Sam’s hand in his was a warm, solid comfort, and Dean was grateful for it. If this kept up, he was going to need as much comfort—parental guidance encouraged, but appropriate for pre-teens comfort, that is—that he could get. "Okay, well. We've got a lot to cover, but I’ll watch out for you, Sam. Let’s just say…nothing below the waist, yeah?" That sounded like a good plan, mostly because it didn’t cut out kisses. And Dean really, really didn’t want to cut out kisses. 

Sam seemed to accept that, and together he and Dean cleared the table. Dean gave Sam his toiletries bag, and Sam went into the hall bathroom to clean up. When he came out, hair wet, wearing a new set of Dean's old clothes, Dean glanced up from cleaning his weapons and smiled, and Sam smiled back cautiously before settling on the couch. 

Eventually, Dean noticed that Sam kept glancing at the bookshelf, up and away, over and over again. It made Dean smile, his best smile yet that morning, remembering the little kid who loved to tell him about his reading and researching.

"You can read those," Dean said. "I got most of them for you, anyway, Sam."

Sam stared at him, wonder bright in his eyes. He moved off the couch, cautiously approaching the sparsely filled bookshelf—Dean had been planning to get some more books for him, but he hadn't been sure what Sam would like, and bookstores weren't his usual hangouts—until he reached out and grabbed a book: one of the thickest, most boring-looking. He glanced at Dean, but Dean smiled encouragingly and continued wiping down the shotgun barrel. Sam moved back to the couch and curled up with his nose in the pages while Dean hummed to himself, glad to see Sam happy and reading something.

Around noon—Dean didn't bother asking Sam, he was getting a little hungry, in spite of the cereal—he pulled the last two pizzas out of the freezer and realized that there was no food left. Just breakfast stuff, a six-pack of beer (minus one), and half a pack of cream cheese. 

Yeah, this wasn't going to cut it. This was only Sam's third day out of Freak Camp; Dean had to be taking better care of him than giving him frozen pizzas every day. Sandwiches and hamburgers at least, he could do that. "Hey, Sam!" He slid the first pizza onto the pizza tray (damn thing had been in his  _closet_ , no fucking idea how it had ended up there).

"Y-yes, Dean?"

Dean held his breath for five seconds before letting it out. It would get better. Sam would not always sound like that. It was just going to take time; a little progress each day. "How about we head to the grocery store? We can pick up some stuff for dinner tonight. See what looks good." Yeah, that was a good idea. Sam would be able to look around, pick out what looked good to him or what he wanted to try. This would help him get a sense of what was available—and a change of scenery couldn't hurt, either. Dean was already feeling the walls start to close in.

They ate and cleaned up the food quickly. Sam stayed quiet on the way out of the apartment, but Dean tried not to read too much into it. He already obsessed a little over every move Sam made, and adding fuel to that fire would lead nowhere good.

He slid in a tape for the short drive to the market. Boulder was a real artsy-hippie kind of place, and everyone he'd talked to had raved about the farmers' markets, but Dean felt more comfortable in a standard, run-of-the-mill grocery store, so Safeway it was. 

~*~

As soon as Dean suggested leaving the apartment, Sam felt like cords were tightening around his chest, but he had said nothing. If Dean wanted to go somewhere, that's what they would do, and surely just stepping outside, driving somewhere else, couldn't be as bad as things he had done in camp. But at least those had been familiar. Still, Dean had given no indication they'd be splitting up and he didn't seem to think this would be any trouble for Sam, so Sam had to trust him.

All the same, he blocked out most of the drive, refusing to focus on anything going by. That was dangerous if Dean asked him later about something they passed, or if he had to remember their route, but until Dean made it clear that was what he expected, Sam couldn't focus on the buildings—each one filled with reals—flying by.

They pulled into the parking lot for one of the largest buildings, and Sam could only blink at it. 

"C'mon, Sam." Dean was watching him, and Sam jumped for the door handle, hoping Dean wouldn't notice his hands shaking. This was the first test. God, he couldn't disappoint Dean, couldn't let him think Sam couldn't handle what Dean thought was nothing.

The Impala was surrounded by hundreds of other cars—all empty, which meant the reals who owned them were likely inside the massive building. Where they were also heading.

He broke it down to one simple task:  _follow Dean_. If he stayed two steps behind, as they walked toward the building and through the automatic sliding doors, no one would question what he was doing. He blocked out everything: the hard gust of cool air when they entered, the tall shelves, the sounds of carts and bustling people. They mattered as little as a guard standing on the periphery of a Director session. He focused on Dean like he was the Director, just waiting for a moment when Sam was distracted to give him vital orders. Though Dean hadn't used any hand signals yet, at least none that Sam had noticed—and wasn't that a nightmare thought, that he might have missed them and Dean was just waiting to get him back to the apartment before punishing him for that—or that Dean had reinforced, so Sam focused on the bottom of Dean's jacket and kept two steps between them.

He almost panicked again when he realized that Dean had been talking to him—for almost a minute—and Sam hadn't noticed.

"...Sam? Hey, Sam, you with me?"

Sam lifted his eyes to meet Dean's, and the stark concern there took him aback, made him lose focus. He took a deep breath, then another. This could not be as bad as it felt.

"You sure you feeling all right?" Dean asked, taking a step closer. He started to raise a hand—which held a small rectangular box—then lowered it back to his side.

Sam nodded quickly. "Y-yeah. I'm fine. This is fine. What—what did you say earlier? I'm sorry I didn't..."

"'S fine. I just wanted to know if you wanted to try Poptarts or these funny granola fruit things." He held up two different boxes in turn, cocking his head and grinning hopefully. 

Sam looked at them blankly. He couldn't remember ever tasting or seeing either. Had Dean given them to him before when they were kids? What did he want Sam to say?

"I," he began at last—he had to answer, even inadequate as it was, even as he was appalled to hear his voice quaver. "I don't know, Dean..."

"Okay," Dean said at once. "Okay, okay, Sam, it's fine." He turned and placed both items on the shelf.

Only then did Sam really  _look_ at the display and see dozens of similar packages in a line. And others on the rows above and below, stretching down both sides around him. 

And then his stupid brain put together what should have been obvious all along just from what Dean had said before they left the apartment: This was a store of food for reals. He had thought the convenience stores from the drive away from Freak Camp were already too much for him to grasp or think about—that reals could go in and have anything they wanted, at any time—but looking at  _hundreds_ of items, just sitting there, without anyone fighting for them—

He wasn't even hungry right then. Dean was still amazing—constantly giving him food, so many times a day, and insisting he eat, that he hadn't felt cramps for days. It wasn't that he wanted any of the packages around him right then or that he couldn't stop thinking about anything but how it might taste if he snatched one and tore it open. He didn't know why the sight of so much food, sitting neatly as though no one had ever fought for it—never killed, clawed at someone's eyes, or hit their knees for it—made him feel like Crusher had him by the throat and was fumbling at his pants, or like the Director was looking at him in that thoughtful, calculating way that meant he was about to test a new way to teach Sam not to be so stupid. Just...so much food.  _Right there._

He wasn't aware that his lungs had stopped pulling in real breaths, that the world was spinning with blacks spots crawling over his vision until Dean grabbed his shoulders and Sam heard him saying, "Shit, shit,  _shit_. Breathe, Sam, breathe—" and then Dean was pushing, propelling him down the aisle, further down, until Sam's shoes stumbled on pavement, not tile, and the summer sunlight warmed his face while the roughness of a brick wall anchored him from behind.

When Dean's hands on his shoulders guided him down, Sam had a wild, sickening thought that it was Victor again, that he had hallucinated the food, Boulder,  _Dean_ —but Dean's words came through before he lost it, before he could try to fight the guards off because the contrast between that dream and the reality that he deserved hurt too damn much.

"Easy, easy." Without pushing or forcing, Dean brought Sam's head down to his knees; there Sam felt contained enough, with Dean's hand warm on his shoulder, to remember how to breathe. Inhale followed exhale, until he could regain some semblance of control, even as his reaction scared him almost as much as it had been draining to experience. He had never felt anything like that in camp, never. 

It was easier to come back to himself surrounded by the basic physical sensations: sunlight, a light breeze, the rough wall behind him, sidewalk beneath him, and Dean's hand steady on his shoulder. Sam put everything else out of his mind and focused on being alive, not in pain, and  _with Dean_. Though when he finally risked a glance at Dean's face, Sam had to fight down another surge of panic. He had never imagined Dean looking like that— _scared_. And Sam had done that.

"Okay," Dean said, after a few minutes. He did not sound okay—Sam could vividly see, in his voice, the expression that had just been on Dean's face. It was not okay. "You—you're all right now, Sam. Feeling better."

Sam nodded fervently—though without opening his eyes—and felt inches from vomiting. He wouldn't do that, he had more self control than to vomit over Dean's shoes—that would certainly be the end at once, if it wasn't already here.

With a shudder, he jerked his thoughts away from the possibility that this was the end. He couldn't think about that right now, not when his control was so threadbare. 

"Okay," Dean said again, and rubbed his shoulder in a quick motion. "I'm...going to get you a water, okay?" He stood, starting to move away, and Sam's eyes snapped open as he lunged forward, seizing Dean's jacket. A part of himself was appalled— _you can't act like that, filthy monster, can't grab Dean in public, should barely look at him_ —but he couldn't stop himself.

Dean knelt back down immediately, grabbing and squeezing Sam's hand in one of his and reaching for the back of his neck with the other. "Hey, hey. It's all right, I'm not—I'm not going anywhere, Sammy."

Sam shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. He was being so pathetic in front of Dean, doing all the wrong things... 

"Listen to me," Dean said, in his low, soothing voice. "We're right outside the grocery store, okay? There's no one around—no one even watching us. I'm not going to let anyone else touch you or come near you, Sammy. It's just us, and we're okay. There's a vending machine six feet away, right there, you can see it. I'm going to walk over, stick some quarters in, and get you a water. Nothing's going to happen to you when I get up. You'll be able to see me the whole time."

At last, Sam nodded, and with a supreme effort of will made himself let go of Dean's jacket, tucking both hands between his knees and pressing tight. Dean stayed for a moment, stroking Sam's neck until his breath evened out again. Only then, slowly, did Dean get up. Sam didn't move a muscle, but kept his hands between his knees and his eyes leveled toward Dean's calves.

Dean went to the vending machine—Sam could see him the whole time, just as he'd promised—and came back with a water for Sam and a coke for himself and sat down beside Sam, their shoulders touching. With difficulty, Sam released his hands to take the bottle and unscrew the top. The water was cold, and very good, and Sam focused only on how good Dean was to him instead of the easily retrievable supply of good water inside the black box.

When the bottle was half empty, Dean—who had been rolling his coke between his hands—exhaled. "All right. So, game plan—I take you back home, then swing back around to pick up the basics, and we'll stay in tonight. I'll...make hamburgers, and then we'll watch..." Dean rubbed his forehead.

Watching him, Sam felt a different, more familiar knot of anxiety twisting up his insides. It was so wrong for Dean to look like this, so worn down and uncertain. Was being around a monster really taking its toll on him that fast, even on someone as strong as Dean, after only three days?

Sam swallowed, pushing past the trepidation and mental voices that told him all he should ever say was  _yes, Dean_ , and said instead, "You...you don't have to take me back now, if you need to buy things here. I'll—I'll be okay now."  _I'll be good, I promise._

Dean peered at him through the fingers of his hand, worry visible on his face even though his eyes were shadowed. "You sure? You don't have to go back in...you could wait in the Impala, if you wanted."

"No." Not that he didn't like being in Dean's car—it was the best place he could be, other than the apartment with Dean—but he didn't want to sit alone in that vast parking lot where anyone could look at him and see a monster where he shouldn't be. Besides, he was sure the shock—he had never, ever dreamed so much food existed, let alone in one place—had made him fall apart like that. Now, he could push it down the same way he controlled his reactions to what he saw, did, or felt in a Wednesday session. Only the first time was he ever so vulnerable. "No," he said, clearly. "I want to go back."

Dean watched him with sharp skepticism, like he wasn't sure he could trust Sam. But of course he couldn't trust any monster. Sam was glad he knew that. "You positive? I wouldn't mind taking you home."

Sam shook his head. He was determined now to prove to Dean he could learn, adjust, do whatever Dean wanted. He didn't go through months of training to be this weak. "No, I'm ready now." He twisted the cap back on the bottle and stood, Dean rising quickly with him and slipping a hand behind his back.

"Hey, hey, take it slow, there's no fire."

It was so overwhelmingly good for Dean to offer him that, even now, that Sam bit his lip and dropped his head until he had control again. "I'm ready," he said softly.

Dean didn't protest again, but turned them to walk slowly back inside. Despite being braced for it, Sam felt a wave of dizziness when they passed through the doors and under the cold fan; once again his hand moved without permission, catching hold of the hem of Dean's jacket. That was all, but he knew better than to think Dean wouldn't notice, that Dean wouldn't shake a freak off, though maybe in a way that wouldn't draw attention from other reals. 

To his shock, Dean didn't hit him or order him to let go—Sam could have, then, he was just, just somehow he couldn't get his hand to relax of its own accord. But Dean dropped his hand down the edge of his jacket, gently disentangled Sam's fingers, and then folded his hand around Sam's —not crushingly hard, just there, here where anyone could see. His hand was warm, firm, so everything  _Dean_ that Sam had ever known.

That wonder was more than enough distraction from the aisles and aisles of food in the vast store that would surely swallow him if he looked up, if Dean stepped away. He didn't raise his eyes; it was all he could manage to keep his feet moving behind Dean's, stopping when Dean stopped. He was okay now, though. He was more certain of that than he had been since Dean first drove away with him from Freak Camp. 

Dean didn't talk to him again in the store, but he also didn't let go of Sam's hand until they reached the checkout line and Sam knew that the hour of grace was over even before Dean squeezed his hand and let go to start piling items onto the conveyor belt. Sam was still okay, though, quiet and calm, though somewhat stunned. Why would Dean do that for him in public, with other reals around? But he had, and that reassured Sam: if Dean would do that, even after Sam had fallen apart on him and been so utterly  _useless_ and unreliable, then maybe he didn't have to fear being taken back to Freak Camp tonight.

~*~

Once they had everything loaded into the Impala's backseat and Dean had shoved the cart off into an open parking space, Sam slipped into the passenger seat and curled against the door, locking his eyes into the inside of his right hand as he pressed it to his forehead, as though the sight of anything outside the window was fucking unbearable.

Dean tried to focus on driving. The novelty of concentrating on making scrupulously safe turns, maintaining the speed limit, and using his turn signals was nearly enough to distract him from the way Sam huddled against the window, one white-knuckled fist clenched in his lap while his posture suggested he was dealing with pain—Dean had curled up that way once or twice, when a hunt had gone badly wrong and both he and Dad were banged up bloody—or protecting himself from attack. 

Damn, he was so stupid, he'd get a call any day now to pick up his Idiot of the Year award for being a complete waste of headspace when it came to Sam. But he hadn't known. He could figure out a haunted object with a handful of pointed questions or know after a casual glance which hot babe at the bar was a sure bet, but he hadn't seen the grocery store coming, even though the warning signs had been all over the place. Practically a train whistle telling him to get the fuck off the tracks. But he hadn't seen any of it, and now Sam looked like he had internal bleeding, wouldn't look at him, would barely move, and it was all Dean's fault.

It was never supposed to be like this, with Sam afraid to look him in the eye, afraid to speak, reduced to grabbing at Dean's jacket like it was a life vest that couldn't hold their combined weight. Dean would do anything to make Sam feel safe, but maybe he didn't have enough to give.

The bottom line, though, was that he was it. The only line of defense between Sam and the world. And even though that was going to be a hell of a lot more work than he had thought— _what, Winchester, you thought it would be fucking easy? That_ Sam _would be easy?_ —he wasn't going to give up, not one single fucking inch.

When they pulled into their parking spot behind their apartment, Dean turned off the Impala and leaned his head back, staring at the Impala's ceiling like the car itself could give him strength. Like that could make him enough for Sam, when he didn't know that anything could make Dean enough for anybody. When he looked over, Sam was looking at him, nervous, broken, wide-eyed, hopeful, like Dean wasn't the greatest fuck-up in the world, just...Dean. 

"Hey," Dean said. "Let's get the groceries inside."

Sam obeyed, like he always did. Dean just had to say a word, and Sam would be moving, halfway there, no hesitation unless what Dean had asked him to do was so far out of his range of experience that he couldn't even conceive of the order applying to him. Like when he told Sam to take an extra helping for himself.

Dean wanted Sam to feel comfortable close to him, wanted him to know that Dean wouldn't push him away, but when they got inside the apartment—Sam following Dean silently, setting his share of the bags on the counter of their too-small kitchen and then just standing there, hands, eyes, and posture empty of any purpose or emotion—Dean couldn't watch Sam anymore, have him  _waiting_ for Dean to tell him what else to do. Because he would, Dean was realizing. Sam would stand and wait and wait until hunger and thirst overcame him or Dean told him to move.

There was no way that one Dean Winchester, hunter and good-as-orphan, should have that much control over another person's life.

"Sam, you look wiped," Dean said, which was true. "Why don't you go relax, lay down for a while? I can handle putting these away."

Sam blinked once, as though he hadn't heard or didn't understand, then slowly took a step back, never raising his eyes. "O-okay, Dean."

Dean waited until Sam disappeared into his room—he didn't wait for the click, Sam always left his door slightly ajar; maybe he felt claustrophobic or worried about being locked in—before exhaling, dropping his elbows to the counter and pushing his hands through his hair. He held that position for a full minute before beginning to unpack the groceries.

Sam slept for the next four hours. Dean kept himself busy with other things than glancing at his watch: checking the wards he'd put down in front of the doors and windows, turning on the TV—volume on low—and watching a couple '80s films. For a while he stopped himself from peering through the partially open door into Sam's room to make sure he was okay—he could not start hovering, or he might lose his mind completely—but after the third hour, he muted the TV and leaned against the wall next to the door, just to see if he could hear Sam breathing. He could—barely audible, but enough. And it wasn't that crazy— _freaky_ , part of him whispered—for Sam to be so tired after the day he'd had ( _the one Dean had put him through_ ).

It was almost 7 p.m. when Dean decided to see if Sam wanted any dinner. He pushed open the door, but hesitated a long moment before moving to sit on Sam's bed, where he slept half-curled on his side, hands pressed between his thighs.

"Hey Sammy." Dean dropped his hand lightly to Sam's back and tried to focus on something other than how easily he could trace Sam's shoulderbones and spine through his T-shirt. Sam's warmth, maybe, and the slow steadiness of Sam's breathing, deep in sleep.

It took a few minutes of touching him and saying his name before Sam began to come out of it, moving sluggishly. "Dean?" he whispered, the uncertainty so palpable Dean had to swallow.

"Yeah, Sam, it's just me. You're here in Boulder, in our...our apartment."

Sam curled a little tighter, closer to Dean's leg, yet still without touching him.

Dean moved his fingers through Sam's hair, feeling a disquiet he couldn't explain. "You hungry, Sam? I was going to let you keep sleeping, but I didn't know if you wanted to have dinner before it's time for breakfast."

"Did I sleep too long?"

"No, no. It's cool. You were wiped, like, run-over-by-the-Titanic wiped, you needed it. Wanna get up for a bite?" He knew he was pushing, but it was awfully important to him that Sam not miss any meals. He wanted to show Sam that he was in a different world now; and in truth Dean suspected he wouldn't feel completely at ease until Sam's face lost some of the sharp angles of taunt skin over bone, until he seemed less like he could be folded away in a duffel or broken by a glancing blow. "I've got a lasagna in the oven, should be done soon."

Sam shifted slightly, and Dean stilled his hand before moving it away. Maybe he should stop petting Sam, give him a little breathing space. "Okay," Sam said at last, and sat up so groggily that Dean almost reached for his shoulders to steady him.

"You feeling okay, dude?"

Sam nodded, head falling forward to his chest, then rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes.

"All right," Dean said, and got up before he couldn't keep his hands to himself for another second. And Sam had been through enough today without getting manhandled into another embrace he wouldn't know how to deal with. "I'll see if I can get garlic toast going without setting anything on fire."

Sam didn't look much more awake when he emerged from his room, but he sat at the table with Dean, and ate his share of the lasagna. They were silent, and it wasn't a great silence, but it didn't seem like Sam was going to fr—collapse again or anything, at least. Dean thought briefly, after the food was put away and the dishes done, of suggesting a game of cards or that they watch a little TV or talk or something, but Sam looked exhausted and he himself felt...just bled out. And no activity he could think of would actually help either of them lose that edge.

"I'm beat, Sam," he said. "You chill going to sleep again?"

"Yeah, Dean," Sam said. He got up, quietly, went back to his room and, for all intents and purposes crashed, even though he had already slept for four hours that day. Dean went to his big master bedroom alone.

~*~

The next morning they had Cheerios. Dean kept meaning to try out his frying pan, now that he had eggs and cheese and butter—he knew he could handle mixing up scrambled eggs, maybe throw it on some toast to get Sam some more carbs—but he had taken one look at Sam's hunched shoulders, the way he twisted his hands, and any energy he had for turning on the stove and cooking something drained out of him. He got out two bowls, the cereal box, and milk.

Sam stayed huddled at the breakfast table, leaning toward the wall, head bowed over his bowl. At least he didn't look for a signal now before picking up his spoon. That was already better than yesterday.

But it was still hard to feel good about anything when the grocery store remained vivid in both their minds. He didn't know how Sam felt about it or how he could rebuild the thin threads of trust between them—trust he had never earned—how he could keep his word and protect Sam, when Dean didn't know half of what Sam needed to be protected from. Dean couldn't even summon the energy this morning to try a conversation, not when he could easily see how that would go down: Sam flinching, dropping his spoon, trying and failing to keep his eyes on Dean's. No matter what Dean said, Sam probably wouldn't understand, it would only get upset and anxious, and Dean wouldn't know where to begin explaining.

So yeah, it was hard to find the motivation to make small talk.

He had to, though. Yesterday had changed his plans, but there were still things they couldn't put off or avoid. Like how Dean didn't have many more clothes to loan Sam. Sure, they had their own washer and a new supply of detergent—nice not to have to go to a laundromat or trust that the rustbucket machine in a crap apartment wouldn't light his jeans on fire—but that just wasn't going to fly. Sam needed his own clothes.

Solving that problem was, of course, not so easy to figure out.

Dean waited until their bowls were nearly empty before he made himself speak. "So—" Sure enough, Sam started and glanced up for a second before looking back down to his bowl, shoulders visibly tauter. Dean pressed on anyway. "We need to get you shirts and stuff, things that are yours instead of my second-hand stuff. I was thinking...I mean, you seem to be fitting all right in my things, I could go out on a run and get some more in the same size. That way you don't have to worry about...going out, the hassle."

This was not how Dean wanted to do it. He didn't want to pick out Sam's clothes for him; he wanted Sam to choose clothes for the first time in his life, to have options and use them. But after yesterday, he wasn't about to push Sam into something he wasn't ready for.

Sam twisted in his seat before visibly forcing his head up, and the pain and fear in his expression struck Dean cold and soured the milk in his stomach. Sam struggled to speak—it was clearly even harder than usual, but Sam seemed determined to get the words out. "N-n-no, I - I want to go. I want to t-try again. I can d-do better, Dean, if you'll let me t-try."

"Sam." Dean reached across the table, laid his fingers over Sam's hand, and Sam stilled at once, dropping his eyes as some of the tension left his shoulders. Dean didn't understand how Sam could have that reaction to Dean's touches when the rest of the time, he clearly expected Dean to swing at him. "Sam, you do not  _have_ to go. I'm not going to be disappointed in you or...anything. I want you to take all of this slow, easy..."

Sam shook his head, eyes shut. "I can," he said, in no more than a whisper. "I can do this."

As soft as they were, Sam's words held a confidence and determination that Dean had never heard in him before. They sent a thrill through him, and he felt a surge of both amazement and hope. He tightened his hand around Sam's. "Okay," he said. "Good. We can do this, Sam. We'll get through it."

Sam opened his eyes to meet Dean's, and he smiled—a little tremulously and not very big, but a smile all the same.

It was hard to shake the feeling they were crossing a salt line when they stepped out the front door. Well, they were, Dean had packed lines of salt under the carpet when he moved in—but it was the  _feeling_ of moving into danger that made his hand drift toward the knife in his jeans and sharpened every sense. Sam kept close to Dean, eyes lowered, but he seemed calm, braced, and nowhere near the panic of the other day, so Dean wasn't going to complain. The walk was uneventful and the drive quiet, with Sam looking out the window—at something other than his feet, at least—and Dean shooting glances at him when he could take his eyes off the road.

Dean had scouted out the town more than once in the months he had waited and agonized about Sam's fucking paperwork, and he had found some big department stores. He had planned to bring Sam there, give him the biggest selection of decent, brand-new clothes he could, whatever Sam wanted. Today Dean knew better.

He drove them just a few blocks, to a small, local thrift shop attached to an auto garage. He couldn't guarantee Sam would be okay in it, but at least the type of place was familiar territory for Dean, and he'd be better able to react when—if—something went wrong.

He hesitated after shutting off the engine, watching Sam. "You okay, Sam?"

Sam nodded. His eyes seemed distant, but he looked surprisingly calm.

All the same, when Dean held the door open for Sam to enter the store, he couldn't stop himself from grabbing Sam's hand before they went in. He hadn't planned the move, but it seemed to be the right one, because Sam gripped his hand tight, even as he kept his eyes studiously on the carpet.

The shopping was pretty straightforward. Clothes didn't seem to have the same effect on Sam that food did, or maybe he was just prepared this time for the aisles, passing people—whatever had set him off before. At any rate, Dean knew now what to do. Picking out a handful of jeans, plus a pair of sweatpants, was the easiest—they were the same height after all, he just had to throw a couple belts into the basket to make sure the jeans wouldn't fall off Sam's hips. He wasn't sure about asking Sam if he wanted to hold the basket—he didn't mind holding it and Sam's hand, but he needed another hand free to browse—but Sam took it without hesitation, folding his hand carefully around the handles.

The selection of men's shirts didn't leave many hard choices, either. Dean wasn't exactly the height of fashion, but what he usually wore—solid-colored tees and long-sleeved overshirts with subdued prints—blended in pretty much everywhere, which was pretty much what Sam needed about now. Dean picked up some jackets—he'd already caught Sam hugging himself like he was too damned cold, probably didn't have the reserves to produce enough body heat on his own—a couple sealed packages of boxers, another of socks, and there, mission accomplished. Under fifteen minutes.

The whole time Sam never raised his eyes, never showed any interest in what Dean throwing in the basket, but he wasn't crumpling up in a wreck and forgetting how to breathe either, and that was a major improvement. Dean only let go of his hand to pay, and after they were safely back in the Impala, he released a big breath—that had felt riskier than scouting a chupacabra nest without backup—and glanced at Sam. "Well, we may never get to shop for those chicks on Clueless, but I think we pulled that off pretty good." He held up one shirt, grinning, but it was hard to hold onto the joke when he felt like he'd won a very small battle in a very large war. The last bit, the bit he had to say, came out more seriously than he meant it to because he did mean every word. "You did good, Sam. That was really good."

Sam's mouth curved up into a small smile, though he still didn't raise his head. 

 _I'll work on that when we get back to the apartment,_ Dean thought to himself, but his hand didn't see the need to wait, turning that delicate, so-breakable smile up so he could see it, so he could let it soak into him like rain, opening the flowers, softening the earth.

 _I want to end everything that ever wiped away these smiles_ , Dean thought fleetingly, but his mouth had more immediate ideas.

Sam's smile felt just as good against his lips. And the way he relaxed against Dean, the way his hand slid over the shirts piled between them to find one of Dean's, was the best thing Dean could have asked for after the day of hell. 

There would be more to come, but here, in this moment, they had survived, and there would be more of this too, and for the first time in what felt like years but had barely been days, Dean felt content.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly, I must warn you all that your authors (Brosedshield and myself) feel RL rising like a tidal wave to swamp them soon, and it may disrupt our regular weekly posting schedule in the next few weeks (Ch. 5, at least, will be ready to go on time next week). We will get back on track as soon as possible!

Dean's happiness lasted about as long as it took them to get home, have Sam try on his new clothes—some things were baggier than others, but at least Sam had some stuff of his own now as opposed to just Dean's extras—and for dinner time to roll around.

Once more, Dean found himself looking morosely into the refrigerator. They had plenty of food—damn shopping trip was worth something, at least—but they were still a bit shy of stuff he was sure he could cook.

He eyed the hamburgers warily. He had made Hamburger Helper a few times and not burned anything—he loved Hamburger Helper, it was the closest thing to childhood comfort food that didn’t come out of plastic wrap or get cooked over a fire—and he’d felt optimistic about the little pre-formed patties when he’d seen them in the store. But now, resting expectantly on the shelf, they looked very raw and pink and uncooked. Given the way the week was going, Dean would probably poison both of them by not cooking the burgers enough. Or burn the apartment down.

 _Definitely wouldn’t get the deposit back then_. Dean closed the refrigerator grimly.

“Hey, Sam, what do you think about going out tonight?” After the grocery store meltdown, Dean had seriously been thinking of locking them in and eating nothing but delivery Chinese food for the rest of their natural lives—depending on the quality of the Chinese food, that could be long or short, you never knew—but Sam had done so much better at the thrift shop. Even though there had been some creepy bagpersons and this one guy that had looked at Sam like he was a whore on a streetcorner. Dean had resisted the urge to pull his knife on the bastard, but hadn’t hesitated to meet his eyes and show him the knife's hilt. 

The guy had scrammed, Sam hadn’t noticed, they had gotten the fuck out of there, and life was good again, except for the whole Dean-afraid-of-cooking thing.

Sam looked up, like a rabbit hearing a sound in the woods. “O-out? If…you want.” His hands found and tightened around each other. “I c-could…whatever you want, Dean.”

Sam looked nervous but determined, the same look he had had before the thrift shop, with just a little more confidence this time. It seemed like they were both getting better at dealing with each other, and while part of Dean thought, _It’s about damn time,_  the rest of him was just grateful.

“Yeah, we can go, take a ride around Boulder, see what places might have good grub. It’ll be fun.” Dean grinned. If it was a little forced, he hoped Sam didn’t really notice, or put it down to the usual nerves.

It wasn’t like going out didn’t have precedent. They’d eaten at the diner that first night and Sam had been…well, he hadn’t exactly been chatting up the waitress, but he had done really well (compared to everything since), and they had sat together, and the look on Sam’s face when he bit into his cheeseburger for the first time…

That decided Dean. Sam deserved food that would put that look on his face, experiences that wouldn’t leave him lost and broken, and Dean wasn’t sure that he could produce that alone from the kitchen. 

“Let’s go, Sam, get your coat--it might be chilly out there.” Dean strode to the door, got out the lighter of Sam’s two new coats and his own, and then they stepped out into the Boulder evening air. It wasn’t really that cold, but Dean didn't want to see Sam shiver. And as tempting as it was to think about pulling him close and sharing body heat when it got too cold, that would definitely be going too far. Or, at least, letting his body get too many ideas about going too far, ideas that Sam might not be up for.

They both relaxed when they were settled into the Impala. For Dean—now as always—it was home, all the more so with Sam in the seat beside him, and the car seemed to have a de-stressing effect on Sam. He actually gave Dean a real smile when the engine started up and then leaned back into the seat, eyes closing, breathing deeply.

 _This will be good_ , Dean thought as he reversed out of the parking lot. Things were definitely getting better.

In the end, Dean decided not to go to an actual bar. For one thing, all that alcohol would be more tempting than was wise when he had to watch out for the dumbasses and the predators. Not for himself so much—he could handle himself in any kind of fight a civvy wanted to bring—but there was Sam to think of now.

For another thing, Sam didn’t look legal. Fuck, Sam didn’t look legal for Dean to be kissing—because he wasn’t, and Dean had better damn well remember that—but he  _really_ didn’t look like he belonged in a bar. Even if his age and his bony, unhealthy thinness didn’t set off alarms, it would attract the wrong sorts of people. The sorts of people that Dean would rather stab than let anywhere near Sam. 

So they ended up at a sports bar about ten minutes away from their apartment. Dean didn't really want to go that far, and Lazy Dog Bar and Grill looked like a promising enough establishment. Dean kept his arm slung over Sam's shoulders—let folk think what they wanted, if anyone asked he would fucking tell them it was none of their damn business, or that they were brothers or something—and then let him get into the booth first so Dean could slide in after him. See, Dean could learn.

When the waitress came over, Dean bumped Sam’s shoulder with his own, until Sam looked up, tense, nervous, his hand clenching Dean’s under the table. Dean smiled at him, to show he was proud that Sam was looking up, was doing so well, but he didn’t try to make him choose anything, didn’t ask him what he wanted. Dean would ask some day (maybe the same day Dean had the courage to actually cook something), but for tonight it was just great that Sam was there with him, holding his hand. 

“I’ll have a beer, and a coke for Sam,” he said. “And we’ll have…two philly cheesesteaks.”

The waitress raised one eyebrow but marked it down. “Gotcha. Fries with that?” She glanced at Sam and then back to Dean, clearly dismissing him, which made Dean simultaneously relieved—Sam didn’t need more stress right now—and irritated.

“Fries don’t come with?” Dean could feel Sam shaking slightly, and Dean's fingers on that hand were going a little numb, so he leaned closer.

“Nope.”

“Yeah, fries.”

Dean breathed out when she walked away, and turned to smile at Sam. “You’re doing great, Sammy. It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

Sam closed his eyes tight, and then reopened them. “It’s okay,” he repeated, but Dean wasn’t convinced, either. 

Dean squeezed Sam's hand and then turned his attention to the bar, looking for something to distract them both from possible disasters lying in wait even in ordering dinner. He’d automatically assessed the bar for threats, but in getting Sam safely to a booth and settled and  _protected_ , he hadn’t really had a good look around.

He realized immediately what he’d been missing.

The brunette at the bar perched on her stool like she knew she was the damn sexiest thing in the room and everyone else better know it, too. She had a slim waist and long legs and wore her little black spaghetti-strap dress like its sole purpose was to highlight everything it wasn't covering. 

“Holy crap, Sam,” he said. “Check her out.”

Sam glanced once at the woman and immediately dropped his eyes. “W-what?”

“The hot chick in the minidress. Sitting  _alone_ , crazy bastard.” She had two drinks near her on the bar and the utterly pissed expression he was familiar with from picking up more than one guy’s dissatisfied girlfriend. He figured he should be more ashamed of those, but they had all—okay, mostly—been worth it. If a guy couldn’t hold onto what he had…

“Fuck, the  _rack_ on her!" Seriously, nothing on the chick was done halfway, from the dress to her legs, even to the makeup. Dean had spent enough of his life needing to make the call about whether fine imperfections on a face meant it was a human or just wearing a human's face, or staring at grainy videocamera footage for unusual eyeflare, to know when a woman was using a little something to enhance her natural look, but this girl didn't need much to make her face look like some kind of succubus', and what she did do with it...fuck, the whole package made him a little hot. "I mean, that is either one damn impressive push-up or supernaturally levitated and either way I should definitely—“ and then Dean realized that Sam had stilled next to him. If he thought that the shivering earlier had been bad, this was worse, and he didn't know how long Sam had been frozen. Maybe he should fucking work harder to notice what was going on right next to him, to realize when he was doing things Sam didn't like. 

Which was when he realized that from the second they stepped out of Freak Camp's gates, he had kissed Sam, touched him, and had never stopped to ask. And Dean couldn't be positive that he hadn't missed subtle signals like this that said Sam didn't want Dean touching him, mouthing him. Fuck, Dean hadn't even asked if Sam  _liked_ guys.

Dean felt sick. Sure, he'd always known that even thinking about kissing Sam was close to cradle robbing, but this...the idea that he could have just not noticed how Sam was feeling...

“Hey, Sam,” Dean said. “You didn't…you probably didn’t have much chance to chat people up in Freak Camp, yeah?” He drummed his fingers on the table, too aware of how Sam's hand had gone slack, dead, in his. Skin crawling, he pulled his hand free, then took a breath and forced out the words, even though they made him sick and he didn’t want to know. He really really didn’t want to know that Sam wasn’t interested in him, because that would mean Dean had been assaulting him this entire fucking time. “Hey, Sam, would you want to…with a girl like her…”

"No," Sam said. He didn't raise his head, didn't move in any way, but there was a forcefulness in the word—and beyond that, deeper, a horror, like Sam was completely appalled Dean even asked—that Dean hadn't heard before in Sam's voice before. "No," he said again, and there was no hesitation in it.

~

At first when Dean pointed out the woman, Sam thought he wanted to show him some part of the bar, a real or activity that he should be aware of, or maybe a lesson. Then Sam worried there might be some kind of threat. But as Dean kept talking, two possibilities swelled in his mind, and both had the bile rising in his throat, horror and panic mingling into a potent, uncontrollable combination.

First, this could be a test. A nasty, dirty, unpassable test. Because Dean seemed to be asking if he wanted to have sexual contact with—to  _rape_ —that woman. The question could mean that Dean really did think of him as the kind of depraved monster that would want to do  _that_ to a human being. But Sam didn't. The very idea made him sick, shaky, devastated that Dean would ask—the Director had almost never asked a question without knowing how he would respond to it—because that had to mean Sam had given some sign or had done something so wrong that Dean would think he  _wanted_ to hurt people.

That was one possibility. But Dean's rough grin indicated worse worse worse. It seemed to mean that  _Dean_ wanted that. 

This was completely different from the possibility of Dean fucking Sam. That wasn't about enjoying the act—though Sam hoped Dean would enjoy it enough to keep him. It was about being Dean's, serving Dean, and giving Dean everything he had, including his blood and pain if that was what he wanted. And besides, Sam was a monster; this woman was a  _real_.

But maybe she wasn't. Maybe Dean had been speaking literally when he made that supernatural comment. And that meant any second now, Dean would get up and...

Sam knew what hunters did to monsters. He had been forced to watch, he had been the one at the interrogation table, though never nailed down, never fucked. But in none of Dean's stories had he made even one comment indicating that he did anything but kill freaks as efficiently as possible.

Sam didn't understand how he could have so completely misunderstood. Or, conversely, how a mere four days in contact with a freak could warp Dean so badly. 

Dean was still talking, though Sam could barely focus to process his words. "I know I grabbed you out of FREACS kind of fast and then just kind of jumped in. I mean, I've always been cool swinging both ways, but you might prefer chicks or not like guys or something...if you're interested in her, but don't want to ask yourself, I could go and say you're shy or something—"

Oh God, Dean was talking about going over there _for Sam_. That meant Dean might make Sam...he might want Sam at the same time...

Sam had thought he was done watching. He had thought—and still clung to the hope—that it would only be him, that he wouldn't ever have to listen to someone else scream again.

"You can tell me, Sam, just lay it on me and I'll understand..."

"I don't want to hurt her!” 

The words tore out of Sam with more force than he had intended—more force than he  _wanted_  to use against Dean, ever—but he couldn’t just keep quiet, couldn’t say nothing. Even if that was wrong. Even if, because he had said that, because he had spoken out against something Dean wanted to do, Dean was going to do it all to him, would hurt him the way Crusher hurt the freaks he fucked, or how the Director hurt monsters that didn’t obey, that didn’t understand their place.

Sam had never thought Dean was like them. He had never believed that Dean was even capable of doing what other hunters and guards had done to monsters at Freak Camp. But time after time in his life, he had been shown he was just a stupid freak that didn’t understand  _anything_ , and he was fucking stupid if he thought he could even imagine what a real wanted. 

Dean was staring at him, and Sam couldn’t stop himself from ducking his head, from digging his fingernails into his arms through the new shirt that Dean had bought for him. He didn’t know what would be worse: to be hit now, in front of all those reals, to have Dean announce what he was and why Dean was justified in breaking his bones, or if he dragged Sam out to the Impala, if he waited until they were back in the apartment to take out the whip, the knife, the shotgun.

“Sam,” Dean said. “I…I didn’t think you did.”

That was it, then. Sam was wrong and too fucking stupid to know what Dean meant. Dean, in only a few words, had made it clear just how damaged Sam was, just how much of a dirty piece of property he was that he had thought those things in the first place. Sam tightened the grip on his arms, using the pain to ground himself, to hold back the sobbing, the begging, the panic that clogged his throat and threatened to choke him.

“I’m sorry,” Sam forced out, through the nausea, the panic, the fear, the certain knowledge that in this new world he had no idea what was going on and that was going to cost him everything. He didn’t understand, he never understood, and one day Dean would teach him that, Dean would be forced to teach him that the way monsters were always taught, the way the Director would have taught him, and even if Dean didn’t want that, wasn’t like that  _now_ , then it would be Sam’s fault that he changed, that he started to like hurting freaks because Sam was so damned stupid, too damn stupid to know what was happening, too damned, fucking, cursed stupid to…

Dean was still staring at Sam like Dean had been punched in the gut. “Sam, what—“

He broke off when the waitress brought them two big plates of sandwiches. Dean straightened, turned away from Sam, and gave the woman a tight smile before she walked away.

He stared down at the plates for a second, then swallowed painfully. “Sam, I don’t…I don’t want to hurt her either…It’s okay.” That last bit seemed directed more at himself than at Sam. “No one’s going to hurt anyone. I’m…I’m sorry I said anything.” Dean reached for his sandwich, and then looked at Sam. Then he put his hand back down. “Sam, you should—“

But Sam knew he couldn’t. He knew that if he looked up, if he so much as loosened his grip on his arms he was going to fall apart, and it was going to be so much worse than it had been at the grocery store. It was going to be so bad that Dean wouldn’t have a choice, he would have to bring him back to FREACS because a hunter couldn't keep a monster that wasn’t under control and Sam wasn’t under control right now, there wasn’t any fucking control in his life and he couldn’t control himself because he was just a freak and he didn’t understand what Dean wanted, or what he intended, but it seemed that every fucking time that Sam tried to do something it was the wrong thing. 

Sam didn’t know what Dean meant about the woman, he had no fucking idea. Crusher would have thought that Sam would want to hurt her. The Director would have forced Sam to say—over and over again—what a monster would do to another monster.

Dean had never indicated anything like that. He had never hurt someone in Sam’s presence, never implied that he wanted to. And he hadn’t done anything but be good to Sam, done nice things for him, bought him clothes, given him a room and it was too much, too much for a worthless, stupid, useless…

Some of his despair and the knowledge of how much he had messed up must have shown on Sam’s face, because Dean turned toward him, so much concern in his eyes that Sam knew that was his fault, too. If he could only be a little less stupid, a little less worthless, Dean wouldn’t have to look at Sam like Dean's world was falling apart, too.

“Not hungry?” Dean tried, with one of those grins that physically hurt, because Dean was clearly trying so hard and Sam couldn’t do anything because he didn’t understand what Dean wanted or how to help.

~

Dean didn’t know what the fuck was going on. He didn’t know what he’d said or done, but Sam was clearly on the edge of a breakdown that would make the disaster at the grocery store look like a wiener dog compared to a werewolf.

Dean smiled at Sam, and Sam  _flinched_ , physically flinched like Dean had fucking hit him. 

They had to get home. They had to get home _right now_ , because Dean didn’t know what would happen when whatever was holding back Sam’s panic broke. 

He waved for the check and didn’t give a fuck about the dirty look the waitress gave him when he asked for doggy bags, even though neither of them had taken a single bite. While she left in a huff, Dean downed his beer, wishing it was something stronger, and tried very hard not to look at Sam, not to see the trembling in his limbs or the way he held a deathgrip on his own arms.

Dean tried to keep his movements smooth and non-threatening, but he was fairly sure he was telegraphing his rage at himself. And he knew, sickeningly, that Sam would think it was directed at him.

Dean didn’t know what he had fucking done, but he knew that he was responsible for reducing Sam to  _this_ when they had been doing so well.

When the carry-out came and Dean climbed out of the booth, he briefly thought about handing Sam the bag—Sam seemed more relaxed when Dean had him doing things, whether that was carrying a duffel or bringing the glasses from the table to the kitchen—but one look at Sam's posture convinced Dean that maybe this one time he could do it himself, even when he ended up having to balance the food awkwardly to get the Impala’s keys out of his pocket.

It felt weird, knowing that Sam was following him to the car as Dean tried not to look at him or do something _fucking stupid_  to set him off before they could get to the Impala, to the apartment, somewhere safe where no one was going to try to lock Dean up for child abuse when they saw Sam collapse.  
 _  
But maybe they should. Maybe you shouldn’t be in charge of anyone else’s life when you’re barely able to hold your own together._

Dean told  _that_  little voice to shut the fuck up and hit the gas a little harder than he needed to getting out of the parking lot.

When Dean got the key into the door of their apartment, he let out a breath. Being "home" gave him the illusion of safety, that whatever had gone wrong could be made okay again. Even if he didn't know what had set Sam off, or what the hell he could do about it.

He got the sandwiches into the fridge, washed his hands, and only then turned to look at Sam, who hadn’t even followed him to the kitchen.

Seeing Sam, trembling in the living room, made the bottom drop out of Dean’s stomach. For a moment he wanted, wholeheartedly, to retreat, go to his bedroom and pretend that whatever had happened tonight would go away if he ignored it long enough.

Two things stopped him. One was that Dean Winchester might have been a lot of messed up things, but a coward was not one of them. John Winchester had raised a crazy bastard—who shouldn’t ever be in charge of anyone else’s life because he would probably just mess them up even more than he was himself messed up— but he hadn't raised a yellow chicken-liver weakling.

The other was that if Dean walked away now, he would be leaving Sam alone to deal with whatever messed up thing this was, leaving him alone to suffer something that—while  _probably_ not completely Dean’s fault—had certainly been exacerbated by Dean at the diner. And Dean would not do that.

Though he seriously reconsidered his position when he stepped into the living room and Sam flinched away from him even harder.

It was just like when he had visited Sam at Freak Camp. For the first few seconds of every visit, Sam had looked like Dean was going to hit him. Come to think of it, that was how Sam had looked almost constantly since he’d gotten him out, too. 

“Sam,” Dean said.

“D-D-Dean?” Sam kept his eyes locked on the floor between them, twisting his hands like he was trying to rub off his own skin.

Dean took a deep breath to focus himself, trying to balance out everything that had happened today and be the strong one, because Sam…Sam was messed up and Dean was  _less_ messed up, and so it was clearly his responsibility—

That was when, looking anywhere but at Sam’s face because  _that_ clearly freaked Sam out as much as anything else Dean might do right now, Dean focused on Sam’s hands and saw the long, angry red lines.

“Fuck, Sam.” Dean moved too fast. He knew he moved too fast, but fuck, Sam was  _bleeding_. He practically jumped the coffee table and grabbed Sam’s hands and felt a little sick that Sam flinched at his sudden movement no more and no less than he had flinched from all the other small motions that day and the days before.  _What the fuck did they do to you, Sam?_

Though maybe the better question here would be  _What the hell are you doing to yourself?_

Dean pulled Sam's hands forward to look at them, then cursed himself, low and steadily for a good minute at the damage he saw. 

Some of the damage on Sam’s hands was old, thick welts that looked deliberate and even. And it was bad enough, getting a good look at how fragile Sam's hands were—how could he not have noticed when he was holding Sam's hand all those times that they were downright  _skeletal_ , to the point where Dean could easily see the tendons moving over his bones under the skin. 

But marked over the old injuries were deep, angry scratches extending from the wrist across the back of Sam’s too-thin hands, lines all red and raw, with some seeping blood through the torn skin. When Dean angled Sam’s arms up so his sleeves slid toward his elbows, he saw more scratches down his forearms, few as deep as those on the backs of his hands, but all white, some red where Sam's nails had bitten and scraped into the skin.

So help him, Dean’s first thought was that he had checked the apartment for ghosts, for haunted objects and mysterious histories, and that he didn’t know how a fucking witch could snoop around and leave a hex bag without him knowing.

Then he saw the blood on Sam’s nails and fingertips, and he had to admit that he couldn’t blame this on anything supernatural.

“What the hell, Sam?” Dean breathed, stifling his panic as hard as he could. He would not panic. He would not. Someone had to not panic, and it looked like it would have to be him, but he sure as fucking hell didn't want to be the only option right now.

“S-s-sorry,” Sam gasped. “S-s-s-sorry. D-Dean, I didn't m-mean…”

Not thinking about this. He was going to focus on the basics right now because if Dean thought about it, he would snap.

“Sit, Sam.” Dean half led, half  _pushed_ Sam down onto the couch. Sam went easily, shaking, keeping his head turned away from Dean, eyes fixed intently on nothing, the fear in him making Dean's gut cramp. But he wasn't thinking about that right now. “Sit there and  _fuck_ don’t scratch.”

Sam nodded, but Dean was already moving. He kept the first aid kit in his room, because he figured that in the case of an attack that would be the best place to retreat, though he had backup kits in other rooms.

When he came back, Sam was sitting exactly where he had told him to, in the exact same way that Dean had left him, his arms half-extended as though he didn’t quite know what to do with them. As though, because Dean had told him not to scratch, the arms didn’t belong to him any more and he didn’t dare lower them, move them, touch them, because that might be violating the rules.

 _Not thinking about any of this_. Dean crouched in front of Sam and took his right arm, careful not to touch any of the ugly scratches. From long practice he opened the hydrogen peroxide against his hip one-handed and dipped it against the cotton ball.

Sam sucked in a breath through his teeth when Dean started cleaning the scratches, but didn’t move away, barely twitched, even though it had to hurt like a bitch. Dean tried to be gentle while working as fast as he could. It unnerved Dean how Sam watched his hands moving, fascinated and repulsed at the same time. Like he’d never had a wound cleaned before.

Their silence stretched, and it hurt. The wounds weren’t deep, but Dean wanted to be sure they were clean. He had to feel like he was  _doing_  something, that even when he couldn’t stop this from happening, he had some way to pick up the pieces. Even though he had the strong suspicion that that was complete and utter bullshit. 

When Dean thought he could keep his voice even—about the time he was done disinfecting every inch of Sam’s raw skin—he reached down for a roll of light gauze and cleared his throat before beginning the process of mummy-wrapping Sam’s arms. 

“You aren’t allowed to hurt yourself, Sam,” he said. He didn’t look up from his work. It probably wasn't necessary to wrap Sam up. Maybe a couple bandages on the worst scratches, where Sam’s nails must have found purchase and kept digging deeper. But he wanted the gauze. He wanted to know that Sam couldn’t hurt himself in this way again, wanted a visible reminder that Dean had to fucking do better, had to be as vigilant in this relationship as he was on a hunt. Sam wasn’t a fucking one-night stand, wasn’t a fuck-buddy or an acquaintance, he was  _everything_ , and if that everything didn’t include sex, or did, or didn’t include anything but Dean taking care of Sam until he had no need for Dean any more, well, that was fine, but Dean had to get him to that point first, had to  _watch_ because the more Sam surprised and scared the shit out of him, the more Dean was convinced that he could lose even this tenuous thing that they had. That one day he would look up and Sam would be gone, somehow, some way, maybe on his own two feet, maybe because he’d done something like _this_ , but Dean had to be more fucking careful. It wasn’t just his life he was taking care of now, but Sam’s, and wasn’t that a fucking joke. He, Dean Winchester, taking  _care_ of someone, when probably the most reliable relationship in his life was with a fucking car.

“You can’t hurt yourself, Sam,” Dean said. “I don’t want to hurt you, and I don’t want you to hurt yourself, and if anyone else hurts you I'll fucking kill ‘em.”

That snapped Sam’s eyes up, only for a second, but it was enough for Dean to see the utter bewilderment in them, to know that Sam had no fucking idea what he was talking about and that whatever had happened at the bar was still messing with his head, because he should not look fucking  _surprised_ when Dean said he didn’t want to hurt him.

Dean had given himself persmission to  _not think about_  a lot of things. But he didn’t think that whatever the fuck had happened at the bar was one of them.

He levered himself up and sat on the coffee table in front of Sam, carefully pulling his hands away from Sam’s. If Sam didn’t want him to touch him, Dean didn’t want to be touching him. This was going to be fucking hard enough when Dean had no idea what he had done.

~

“Sam, I need…” Dean stopped and took a deep breath while Sam’s nerves tautened. “Sam, I know I did something…said something that totally fre—messed with your head, but I don't know what and I…I’m really new to this, man. You have to—I need you to be patient with me. Can you…Sam, just tell me what I did, and I’ll do better, I promise.”

It was almost like Dean was pleading with him, and that didn’t make any kind of sense.

Sam didn’t know what to say. Quite apart from the fact that he had no right to make demands of Dean, of anyone—it was already too much that Sam had inconvenienced him in the restaurant—Sam simply didn’t know what was wrong with himself other than that he was a weak, twitchy, stupid freak, and  _that_ he couldn’t change.

But Dean had asked him a question, and he could no more ignore that than he could stop himself from making Dean ashamed of him every time they left the apartment.

“I don’t w-want to h-hurt her,” Sam repeated, because that at least he knew was true.

Dean looked  _more_ worried,  _more_ distraught. His hand twitched like he wanted to move forward and touch Sam, but he stopped before the motion could even properly begin.

“Sam, I didn’t want to hurt her either.” Dean ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking straight up and spiky. Sam wanted to smooth it down again, wanted more than anything to be able to touch Dean without dirtying him. “Sam, I talk shit sometimes. I know that, it’s a bad habit that I should—well, sometimes I  _want_  to piss people off, but I’m gonna do my best to change anything you need, and you have to believe that I didn’t want to hurt her either. I wouldn’t, Sam.”

It seemed like the woman really hadn’t been a monster. Sam had just misunderstood, because he was so stupid, so…but he had to be sure, even though it sickened him to ask. Part of him didn't  _want_ to be sure, because then his worst fears would be confirmed—fears he hadn’t even known existed until Dean had said those things and suddenly Sam had remembered the same words in Crusher's voice, in Victor's, in all the guards at Freak Camp that had told him what he, as a monster, should expect. 

“But if she was a monster…”

Dean gestured in an oddly hopeless motion, his hands open and imploring. “But she wasn’t, Sam. With monsters it’s different.”

Sam shuddered, the dread that had been haunting him for so long coalescing at last in a sick, dead weight inside him. He had been told that his entire life, but it had never meant what it did when he heard it from Dean’s mouth. 

Dean went on. “I can’t say…fuck, I  _want_  to say that I don’t want to hurt anyone, and I don’t normally, but monsters…a monster is a monster, yeah, not because it’s supernatural, but because they  _hurt_ people, Sam, and sometimes when you’ve finally ganked a djinn or tracked a shifter that’s been slaughtering entire families wearing the face of a mother or a father…yeah, it feels good to stab a fucker like that in the heart.” Dean folded his hands over Sam’s, careful of the bandages. “I’m sorry, Sam. I fucking wish I were better for you.”

Sam felt something break loose in his chest. Sure, his heart was still beating like a rain of bullets on a barracks roof, but the horror he'd lived with since the bar—the devastating possibility that the life he'd have with Dean would be just like the pain, horror and constant dread of Freak Camp—was just gone. Not snuffed out, but broken, shattered, snapped into pieces so tiny that yes, they hurt, but they weren’t like pins in his chest any more, hurting every time he breathed. This was like dust in his eyes, a shard of something under his skin, and it would work its own way out of him, he would heal from the damage that it had done.

That still hurt, the thoughts had hurt and still left him twitching, but he knew they were temporary. In a day, in an hour, they would be gone like the dust and not even the memory would linger.

Sam stared down at Dean’s hands wrapped over his. There it was, everything good about Dean contained in the image of his hands resting so gently over Sam’s bandaged ones that Sam couldn’t even feel them.

When Sam hurt himself, like the stupid freak he was, Dean put him back together. When Sam had clearly caused Dean pain in some way that he did not understand, Dean still touched Sam so very carefully that even open wounds weren't hurt. Dean took care of him. Dean cared for him. In spite of the freak he was, Dean was there, patient, and he wouldn't get rid of him for these stupid weaknesses. 

That was euphoria. That was joy.

But better yet was the reassurance that Dean was nothing like the guards. Not that Sam should have ever, ever doubted that. He had felt a laugh bubbling up in his chest when Dean talked about what gave him satisfaction in a hunt. Beheading a shifter with silver? Shoving a bloodied knife into a djinn's chest?

Sam had done those. Both of those, under the Director’s orders. The Director and Crusher had called it _too fucking good an end for a filthy freak_. Sam had always thought of it as a mercy.

Dean’s idea of cruelty, of harshness, of harm, was Sam’s definition of kindness. And Sam’s definition of kindness had always been far more than he could ever hope for in Freak Camp.

Sam bent over their closed hands, wishing he had permission to kiss Dean’s fingers, to thank him for everything he had done, to thank him for being so good that it hurt, so good that it threatened to break Sam in half from the joy and unnatural, intense release from fear, a freedom that he had never felt before.

He managed to force out words, even with his throat closed up from the relief, the heady, blessed, euphoric relief. “You’re so good, Dean,” he said. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, thank you so much.”

“Hey, Sam.” Dean moved over to the couch, next to him. “Sam.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” was all Sam could say, but that seemed, at least for the moment, while Dean shushed him and cradled his head against his shoulder, to be enough.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean couldn't sleep that night. He lay in bed, staring at the blank white ceiling, listening to his heart beating too hard in his chest, sometimes turning over to punch his pillow with a viciousness that had no target in life. He couldn't punch something and make the problems with Sam go away. He couldn't even toss and turn too much because part of him was afraid that Sam would hear and think that Dean's rage was directed toward him.

It wasn't just the anger, the desire to light something on fire, that kept him awake. There was also the inescapable image, emblazoned in his head like the angles of his mother's coffin, of Sam in his arms, Sam's scratched and bleeding arms, and his soft, pitifully grateful words.

Sometime between the blank rage and the broken feeling that felt suspiciously like tears, Dean came to a realization.

He, Dean Winchester, was in so far over his fucking head it was a wonder he and Sam were still breathing. He should have realized that after the horror that had been the grocery store—no, fuck, even before that, he should have known from the second he got Sam out of camp. But he had ignored Sam's first twitches, he had kept moving, kept talking, hoping that the power of momentum would make anything wrong with Sam just go away. And he had been doing that from the get-go. He should have known this wouldn't be easy, that he wouldn't be able to just waltz into Sam's life and fix it from that very first night. Except that he hadn't been willing to let himself think about that first night longer than a few minutes at a time. His avoidance of each day's catastrophes was _nothing_ compared to his determination not to revisit that first night. But tonight he had to think about it, had to think about the whole, long, brutal, bloody, appalling string of disasters because he couldn't fix this by lighting it on fire. And he  _should_ think about it, because every setback was pointing to one truth. 

It had practically been lit up with neon lights: _you don't have a clue what you're doing, you can't tell the difference between helping and hurting Sam_. Every time that thought crept into his head, he had told it to go fuck itself because he wanted this—a life with Sam—and there weren't any other options.

Yeah, that was selfish. Wanting to keep Sam to himself, protect him, make him smile. But that didn't change the fact that Sam didn't have a lot of choices out there. He had Dean, and maybe Bobby, but Dean couldn't go to anyone else with something like this, not when he couldn't even begin to explain what had gone wrong or what the problem was. He just knew that something in the past had fucked Sam sideways, and right now Dean had no control over how that was affecting him.

Of course, finding someone to help would also require finding someone that Dean trusted to let help. Even Bobby—yeah, maybe Bobby could come in, but what could he do? Especially when Dean knew enough now to feel more than a little uneasy about pushing Sam into close contact with other people.

Dean flipped over, twisting his sheets, and punched his pillow and then froze, listening, hoping that he wouldn't hear Sam's flinch, that the kitchen and the living room between them would keep Sam from hearing Dean and thinking something else completely fucked up. When he didn't hear Sam, didn't hear anything but the distant sounds of the city, he relaxed into the pillow and breathed through the fabric.

So it was just him against the world, trying to help Sam, and Dean knew there weren't that many people who would give a damn if he died, and not a single soul that really gave a fuck whether or not he ever managed to make Sam marginally less afraid, let alone  _happy_ for a minute at a time. 

And after tonight, he couldn't deny that he was  _afraid_  down to his core—something he hadn't felt in years—about the other ways he might fuck this up. About how anything might happen to Sam, even when he was right next to him, just because Dean didn't realize how what he was doing or saying affected Sam, or just didn't  _notice_.

He honestly couldn't say how this was going to end. They—well, Dean at least—were hunters, and Dean knew better than most that that generally guaranteed the opposite of a happy ending. Nothing was written that said a year from today this would all be behind them, and he wasn't sure how they could survive that way, couldn't imagine them living always on broken glass and afraid to touch or move around each other. Was it even possible for Sam to adapt, get better—these were just the very early days of a completely new world for him, Dean had to  _remember_ that—or, so much worse (and far from impossible), would he keep tail-spinning with nothing Dean did able to save him because Dean had been  _too fucking late_.

That was the nightmare possibility he hadn't wanted to face: that all of his efforts were too little, too late, and there was no hope for Sam. Nothing Dean could do would make him better, or anything better for him. It could all be hopeless.

Dean twisted again, remembering just in time not to punch the headboard (two indents in it already, nothing that would even draw the eye, but Dean's knuckles remembered the particle wood) ,not to make any kind of sound. Instead he stumbled up, swearing at the carpet that seemed to want to snag his feet, and staggered to the bathroom.

His eyes hurt when he flicked on the lights, but he stared at the mirror anyway.

He looked like shit—which wasn't surprising, as he hadn't been sleeping—with bloodshot eyes and crazy hair. He looked like a guy who could fail spectacularly at the most important part of life, not a problem.

Shit, no, he would not fucking accept that. He would not quit less than a week into this. Yeah, he had no right to take care of Sam—no matter what that little piece of paper said. Yeah, it seemed sometimes like the only competent thing Dean had done was get Sam out of FREACS—though wasn't it cold fucking comfort that he had to use that for a standard? But he  _had_ gotten Sam out, and even if this entire catastrophe now was at least partly his fault for taking too fucking long about it, Dean still wouldn't stop trying to make Sam smile, to give him some kind of security and life.

Dean must have stared at himself for a good twenty minutes, letting the yellow light bleach him, his eyes soak in the exhausted bastard in front of him, until he finally flicked it off and went back to his cold, lonely bed. He would do better for Sam. Maybe then he could actually  _sleep_.

He was learning every day, he was, though each lesson hurt like he was breaking bones. He knew better—now, sometimes—what was going on in Sam's head. Like after tonight, he was pretty sure that Sam hadn't even been conscious of what he was doing to himself. Maybe that should have made Dean feel better, but it didn't. Not when he had an inkling that Sam would never have taken the initiative to deliberately hurt himself, not when he was always looking at Dean for clues for when to pick up a fork or sit down on the sofa—because Sam wouldn't take that much control with his own body (shit, did he think that he was Dean's  _property_ or something? That was another sick thought Dean didn't have the faintest idea how to go about correcting). And for all that he hated Sam's unhesitating obedience, Dean had to hope that maybe Sam had listened to him tonight, maybe he understood that Dean didn't want him hurting himself. Even if it had been happening on some fucked-up level of Sam's subconscious, maybe he would catch himself and wouldn't do it again. 

If nothing else, if Dean couldn't prevent Sam from sliding into the bad spaces, he could at least learn to recognize them and catch Sam before they hit the bottom. 

~*~

Dean had no plans for the next day, and he planned to keep it that way; he'd see if, somehow, they would be able to avoid a disaster if they stayed inside the salt lines.

One step at a time.

Sam read on the couch. Dean couldn’t have said that he had planned on having a couch long enough for guys of their height, but when he had seen this one at the local thrift store for about fifty bucks, he had jumped on it. He was grateful he had, and not just because the living room would have looked really empty without the couch and the coffee table. Sam looked so comfortable, head propped on one saggy armrest, feet not even touching the opposite edge, that Dean wouldn’t have changed anything.

Of course, Sam hadn’t started out sprawling. Getting him to actually relax had been a gradual, step-by-step process. At first, Sam had sat stiffly on the edge of the couch, book held in front of him like he was preparing an American History lecture (Dean wasn’t even sure why he had held on to that textbook; he’d found it buried in the Impala after getting his lease). Dean couldn't deal with seeing Sam perched there like he didn't belong, like he was ready to bolt at any moment. Right then, Dean decided that getting Sam comfortable in their apartment—after all, this was his just as much as Dean's—was a good first sub-goal.

So he'd dropped down next to Sam, pulling him back against the cushions, rambling nonsense about how he'd picked out the furniture and showing Sam how he could stick his feet on the coffee table. He was careful not to _tell_  Sam what to do, but gave him enough suggestions—"I didn't import this couch from Europe, y'know, I don't give a damn if you put your feet up on it, you gotta show couches who's boss"—so maybe, just maybe, Sam would get the picture. And he looked happy—startled at Dean's sudden invasion, but there was a slight flush in his face and a brightness in his eyes that was damn nice to see. And when Dean carried on with a bunch of silly questions about what he was reading (even Dean knew the Civil War hadn’t been about manners, nor had the War of 1812 been fought at quarter past six in the evening, military time), Sam's mouth curved up in a smile, which was the best fucking reward Dean could have imagined.

Dean got up before he got  _too_ carried away (the idea of kissing that smile seemed ever more irresistible), but Sam was definitely relaxing into the couch now. After Dean inventoried the kitchen to figure out their next few meals, as well as to try to ram the pizza pan into a cupboard that was _too damn small_ , he let himself glance over the breakfast bar to see that Sam had actually slid down onto his side, the book propped in the crook of one elbow and his legs folded up on the couch.

Dean counted it so much of a victory that, when he brought over a glass of orange juice, he let himself sit down on the edge of the couch—though he had to put his hand on Sam's shoulder at once to keep him from sitting up—and bent over to press a kiss to Sam's temple. He heard Sam's breath catch, and Dean didn't push it more than that. Just sat quietly for a minute, brushing his fingers through Sam's hair and watching his face, which was very still but had none of the warning signs that said this was  _bad_. Dean thought he had learned how to recognize those, though it still felt like an awful risk to trust himself that far. But when Sam's eyes fluttered shut, Dean was willing to bet that was a good thing. 

At last he made himself get up— _don't get carried away, Winchester_ —and grabbed another book off the shelf to read on the other end of the couch. He had had about enough of wandering around the apartment, trying to think of something else to do, and anything Sam loved so much was good enough for him. 

But the book he’d grabbed—an anthology by a dude named Norton—was thick and boring and he found it hard to concentrate when Sam’s feet were right next to him, almost touching his thigh. He dropped the book onto the table and pulled over the Boulder newspaper instead, flipping idly through the sheets just to get a feel for the paper, before reading the articles much closer than he normally did. He didn't expect to find anything supernaturally unusual, but it never hurt to be sure.

Eventually, once assured there was nothing out of the ordinary in Boulder's personal ads, he got up and started tidying. Not that anything really needed to be cleaned, but a lifetime of being anal about weapons and personal care—you never knew when one lazily washed wound could pick up a supernatural disease or contaminant that required something a little stiffer than run-of-the-mill antibiotics—had made him willing to putter productively. Out of habit he checked his weapons (weird to not have used a gun or knife in the past week, there wasn’t much to clean, sharpen or polish), wiped down the kitchen, and then cleaned the second bathroom. Eventually he got desperate enough to tackle the random stuff he’d thrown into the corner of his bedroom. He'd always planned on sorting and arranging it some day—in the Winchester family, weapons and first aid took priority and everything else could go to hell—so why not today?

He did some stuff in the room itself, grateful to have a place he could retreat to where he didn't have to worry how Sam would interpret his expression—straightened the picture of his parents on the nightstand, played with the closet door, thought about ways to reinforce the bathroom with steel plating—and then decided that he’d been away from Sam longer than he wanted, so he grabbed one of the random bags in his closet (how  _had_  he accumulated so much crap so fast?) and headed back to the living room. 

That’s when Dean noticed that Sam had changed books. His position was exactly the same as before, he looked just as intent and focused—from the way he stared at each book, it looked almost like he planned to read all of Dean’s admittedly paltry library in one sitting—but that book was definitely different. Dean didn’t need to be a master of detection—though he was, of course, he’d tell that to anyone, he could always tell when guys were eying him as competition or because they'd like to try a piece of him for themselves—to notice that difference.

He felt weird that Sam had waited until he was in the bedroom to move. Sure, maybe he had just finished the book while Dean was gone but…he looked so exactly in the same position that if Dean had been on a hunt, the warning bells would be going off about now.

But this wasn’t a hunt. This was Sam.

Dean ignored the mild discomfort, put his duffel on the table, and dug into it.

The bag was full of crap. Receipts for the stuff he’d bought—normal people saved those, right?—old newspapers, skin mags, a tiny silver knife that looked destined for slaughtering weresardines or something. Most of it was pointless, random, or completely out of place, but some of it was unexpectedly useful. A couple Boulder delivery menus, a few condoms with wrappers still intact, a TV Guide, and a crumpled brochure that turned out to be a visitor's guide to Boulder. It seemed so long ago when he had started thinking about getting a permanent place here for him and Sam, a time fraught with paperwork, panic and nerves, but that was done now. Sam was out, with him, and that was all that really mattered at the end of the day. 

Dean unfolded the brochure and found a detailed map marked with shops, restaurants, parks, museums, and random little smiley faces that seemed to be other attractions. His first instinct was to pin the map to a wall, see if anything on it turned out to be a supernatural hotspot. But then he realized it could also be just exactly what it was: a map.

“Hey Sam!” he said, holding it up, “Check this out!”

Of course he could have kicked himself when Sam practically dropped the book and snapped to attention, almost getting up off the couch. He only stopped when Dean rushed forward and crouched down in front of him with the map, ass on the coffee table, trying to preserve Sam's brief relaxation. Sam froze until the map was resting on his knees, Dean's hands holding it down.

Dean didn’t really need to look at the map again—he’d scouted pretty much everywhere in the town, and while he wouldn’t have been able to find the Boulder Museum of History, he certainly knew where the best bars were. Priorities, man—so he handed the map to Sam, who took it with the caution of someone just handed a live, but non-poisonous, snake.

"I don't know how much experience you have with maps…"

Sam glanced up. "I—I've studied them," he said softly.

"Cool. Well, this is Boulder, our town. I dunno if you wanted to take a look, get a feel for what's here. See, that block, that's where we live, right there. We've got downtown not too far away, and the big college—but yeah, you can see what's marked out. If anything looks interesting, we can check it out. Whenever you want." 

Sam didn't respond, but he focused on the map intently, so Dean decided the map was a decent success. He smiled and let go, getting up to finished dismantling the debris on the table.

Sam studied the map the entire time that Dean was emptying the bag. When Dean brought the emptied duffel back to the bedroom, went to the bathroom and came back, he saw that Sam had picked up another book. Again, Dean hadn’t seen him move, and he was in the exact same position. Fr—weird. Very weird.

About this time in the day, not having anything to do, Dean would step out to roam for chicks—or guys—or go to a movie, or bar, anywhere, somewhere out of his base camp. He’d have been scouting the supernatural scene, reading up on local legends, interviewing people involved in possible hauntings. He would be keeping busy. But he’d  _done_ all of that already—in the six months waiting for Sam, if not that morning—and he wasn’t quite sure what the next step was. Was this when normal people picked up a hobby or something?

As a last ditch activity, he went back into his bedroom and brought back out the computer (yeah, Sam changed books again). He didn’t really like the computer. He could never find anything on the web when he looked for it—except porn—and it was  _such_ a hassle. He’d met hunters who said the internet was the wave of the future, but Dean couldn’t seem to see it, no matter what he tried. Sure, it was a great way to share information, but if the information didn’t make any  _sense_ , what good was it?

Still, he had one—thank you, ASC Resources and Supply Program—and he could make it work. Though, you know, not  _well_.

He plugged in this cord and that cord, turned it on, fiddled, hit a couple keys—out of frustration when the thing took forever to turn on, or load, or wake up, or whatever it was that computers did—switched on the modem-thingy and then signed onto the World Wide Web.

When the browser opened up automatically on the ASC website, Dean was grateful that he was facing Sam and there was no chance he could see Dean’s computer screen.

The page contained the usual advisories for hunters: lists of monsters caught, and where, in the United States; ghost and demon hotspots; current bounties offered. But right at the top were the articles and notices for non-ASC personnel, normal humans who wanted to know more about the organization that protected them from the supernatural threat. He couldn’t avoid reading the headline, at least, and the letters were big enough that Sam would have easily been able to see them from the couch.

MONSTERS AMONG US: WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Dean felt a weird sense of déjà vu, or maybe just nausea. Because that question was very important. People had to know that sometimes disappearances, weird things moving, and light flickers were just random problems, fate kicking you in the balls, but something it was freaky shit that had to be dealt with by professionals. Even though Dean wasn’t even legal to drink—though that had never stopped him, of course—he considered himself a professional. He had known about hunting as long as he could remember, and had  _been_ hunting for most of his life.

But at the same time, by some definitions, Sam, lying there on his couch, was a monster, one of the freaks about whom the article warned:  _can masquerade in the human form to use and damage you or your loved ones_. That idea was so wrong, couldn't possibly apply to Sam. But on a certain level, it was what he believed about every other monster.

He stopped reading. He got out of that page as quickly as he could. Sam couldn’t see it, thank God, but Dean didn’t want to look at it anymore, afraid that the emotions it called up would be visible on his face and Sam would _see_.

~

Sam couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this happy. The last time  _before Dean_ , that is, because much as he was messing things up—and not quite sure why Dean hadn’t run out of patience—every day with Dean had its moment of joy, of happiness so pure it hurt.

Yes, he was afraid, but it wasn’t the fear that Crusher would catch him or that the Director would find something wrong with him, or that he would have to spend  _more_ time with a hunter or a guard. This was the fear that he would do something to drive Dean away, that he would have  _less_ time to savor being with him. Sam was still fucking up in ways he couldn’t help because he was a stupid monster, but Dean was just as wonderful as he had always been and even more patient than Sam could have dreamed.

Sam had thought that being fed,  _constantly_ , was wonderful enough, but when Dean said he could read the books…

He held one in his hands right now, the pages crinkled around the edges, the text having  _nothing_ to do with monsters, hunting, or anything he was familiar with. But it was wonderful. Reading had always been one of his most priceless treasures, right up there with Dean's visits, because it let him escape. It had been one of his only safe places—and one carefully hidden even deeper after the Director took an interest in him—but now, it was a pure pleasure. His life wasn’t bad enough to need escape—the first time in his memory that that had been true—but the books let him shut off the part of his brain that was so  _terrified_ of losing that peace. 

He was with Dean and with books, and he could literally not have imagined anything better, except perhaps the reassurance that these things would never be taken away.

But he wasn’t so out of it that he didn’t notice when Dean brought out the computer. He tried very hard to concentrate on his book, but his eyes kept straying. Not just because he might be required to use it later for research—and wouldn’t that be  _awesome_ —but because it looked like a newer, better model than the one Sam had been using at FREACS, and he…he  _wanted_ to try it. More than once, guards had complained that the computers at FREACS were shit that no real would want to use, suitable only for freaks and still too good for them, and part of Sam wanted to see if he could actually do more on a real’s computer. Maybe he could tell Dean, in some way that wouldn’t make it seem like he was a grabby monster, that he knew how to use a computer, that maybe he could help him.

Of all the things that Sam had been forced to do in Freak Camp, working with computers had been one of his favorites. Searching, finding, putting information together that might save families of innocent reals—he knew firsthand what vampires and werewolves could do when they got violent, and he still remembered the shredded bodies of guards that had been a little too slow during the demon assault on FREACS a few years ago—felt good. And it would be good to help Dean, too. Maybe show him that Sam could be useful, even if Dean didn’t want to use him any other way.

Remembering who he was thinking about, Sam mentally kicked himself. Dean might not need his help. He might not need anything Sam could offer, especially with the computer. But it really didn’t look that way. Every step that Dean took setting up, Sam could do at about twice the speed and with a lot more efficiency. And without wincing, growling, or hitting the thing. Some men liked things slow, but Dean certainly didn’t look like he was enjoying the process. Sam could take that away from him, do anything he didn’t like.

Even after Dean had the machine set up and, presumably, working, he didn’t look happy. Sam was glad Dean had never looked at him the way he was glowering at the screen. It made his hands tighten on the edges of the book, made him feel very aware of every  _tool_ in the room.

But Dean didn’t look at him, didn’t even glance in his direction, and eventually his expression grew less pained and took on the absorbed look that Sam was familiar with on other faces, usually of the hunters that had commandeered the “freak” computers for an emergency search or to check Sam’s calculations.

It was nice in the apartment. Quiet, peaceful, no blood or screams, no stains or wetspots where blood or jizz had been scubbed away. No pain. And he had a book that gradually absorbed more and more of his attention. It was about as close to heaven as Sam figured he would ever get, and his only regret was that he didn’t have any idea how he could keep it from ending.

~*~ 

As the sky dimmed to dusk through the living room window, Dean stood up and stretched, popping a few joints. His muscles felt stiff. Hell, he hadn't been for a run, or done any of his usual workout, since the day he picked Sam up. No wonder everything felt out of whack, like the walls were closing in. This would all be a lot easier to handle if he could work out some of his stress lifting or running laps. 

Going into the kitchen, he debated how to bring that up. It wasn't like he needed Sam's damn permission (or that Sam would know how to grant it) to leave the apartment without him, but every glimpse of the bandages around Sam's hands reminded him, as they should, that  _nothing_ was as simple as it seemed, and he didn't actually have a clue what might happen to Sam if he left him alone.

Dean was vastly relieved to see the white styrofoam boxes inside the fridge. That made dinner plans easy. "Hey, Sam, I'm going to heat up our leftovers, okay?"

Sam answered affirmatively after a short hesitation, but Dean only half-heard. He was on a hunt for the tin foil he could have sworn he'd bought. His first instinct had been to nuke the whole box in the microwave, but he knew that turned the fries rubbery, and Sam deserved better. If Dean wasn't going to cook, he could at least take the time to heat things in the oven.

Though that definitely took longer, especially since Dean forgot to preheat before he slid the wrapped sandwiches—on top of the pizza tray, at least he got to use  _that_ again—into the oven. He turned on a timer, then wandered into the living room to sit next to Sam. He noticed Sam had the same book in his hands, but open to the first chapter while Dean was positive he had seen Sam close to the end a little while ago.

Dean pointed his chin toward it. "How do you like ol'  _Huck Finn_?" 

"Oh—it's good. Really good." Sam looked down at the book, which he held as though it were a precious object he wanted to touch as little as possible. "Thank you for letting me read."

Dean dropped his hand to rest lightly on the back of Sam's neck. "Whenever you want, Sam. The books are for you." Then his eyes fell on the TV Guide he'd tossed onto the coffee table. "Hey, let's see if there's anything good on tonight." He picked it up to flick through it, wondering if there was anything Sam might like.

When the timer beeped, Sam followed him into the kitchen and helped Dean carry the plates and cans of soda, but Dean stopped him before he set everything on the table.

"Hey, Sam, let's sit on the couch for dinner. I think I found something you'll like."

Sam changed course easily enough, and Dean felt absurdly pleased when Sam folded his legs onto the couch beside him. He flicked through the channels until he found the one showing the first _Home Alone_  movie. He figured it was better to start off with something light and safe, and what could be better than a slapstick Christmas comedy, even if it was in July. Besides, the movie was rated PG, so that even fit the rules.

Dean tried not to watch Sam obsessively as the movie got underway. It was part of his effort not to drive himself insane with every little thing so that he wouldn't be as likely to get himself killed as notice an actual threat. He found it hard, though, as the McCallister family embarked on their absurd antics, not to be hyper-aware of Sam's reactions—or lack thereof. Sure, it was a cheesy film, but Dean had a soft spot for it; he and Dad had spent a few Christmases watching motel cable, drinking hot chocolate and whisky (respectively) through multiple repeats of classics like  _The Santa Clause_  and  _A Christmas Story_. Dean thought  _Home Alone_ was pretty funny.

But Sam didn't laugh. Not once.

Dean tried not to notice. He tried not to track Sam's reactions to every scene, because he wanted so damn much to believe this would be okay. That they could watch a cheesy Christmas movie without falling apart. He should have known better—the bandages on Sam's hands, the memory of the  _grocery store_ should have reminded him that nothing was easy or safe, nothing could be taken for granted. And he should never have ignored the first time Sam flinched, when Kevin slapped aftershave onto his cheeks and let out the scream to raise the dead. But he let it go until they reached the night when the Wet Bandits walked straight into Kevin's booby-traps.

The moment Kevin took aim with his BB gun at Harry's crotch, it clicked for Dean. Sam had never made a sound, but every time someone got hurt, made a threat, or a sneering remark, he had flinched, flattened himself into the couch, or balled his hands in his lap. And it hit Dean without warning what all that body language had been pointing at. Way too fucking late. Dean fumbled for the remote and shut off the TV before Kevin could pull the trigger.

Dean leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and head in his hands, and took a moment to breathe and think what he'd almost done to Sam. Of what could have happened if he'd let that play out. He remembered now, vividly, what had been coming up: Harry grabbing a red-hot doorknob; Marv stepping on a nail with his bare foot; Harry's head torched; the bandits threatening to bite off Kevin's fingers.  _Fuck_. 

It was a minute before he could bring himself to lift his head and look to see how much damage he'd inflicted. But when he did, Sam, to his amazement, looked okay—no, not okay, Dean knew fucking better than that now, and he was beginning to doubt he'd ever see Sam okay—he looked nervous and a little upset, but not in pieces, nothing like he had been...those other times. He was looking at Dean, for one.

Sam bit his lip, hands twisting in his lap. "You don't...you don't have to turn it off. I didn't—"

"No, Sam, it's cool. Stupid movie anyway." Dean leaned back and stared at the smooth plaster ceiling. He almost wished for a few cracks, a spiderweb or two, maybe a creepy water stain. Then, at least, he could pretend that he could actually divine some answers. Instead he received what he always got from the universe: a blank white nothing for him to fuck up. He kept talking, hoping maybe if he just kept the words coming at some point they would make sense, and what he had almost done to Sam would go away and he wouldn't have to think about how dangerous every—little—-thing—was, and how inevitably he was going to be blindsided again. And again. "I mean, we could play cards, we could...read. Or...sleep. I like sleeping, it's...restful."

Any normal person would tell Dean that he was a fucking mumbling idiot and there was no way they wanted to hang out with him. He half expected Sam to start begging or saying something about how they could do whatever, he didn't care, he didn't care about anything.

But what Sam said, a little nervously, was: "Cards...cards sound good. If you're not..."

Dean never thought that hearing someone else's opinion about what he should do for an evening would feel so good. Or be so hot. But this was Sam.

Yeah, it didn't make him feel like the best human being in the world, but it gave him enough strength to look away from the ceiling, to where Sam was looking at him with something close to hope in his eyes.

"Well, hell," Dean said. "Yeah, that sounds good."

They moved to the kitchen table because the coffee table really wasn't tall enough to play cards on, and Dean got them a couple more Cokes—he didn't think he should be drinking anymore, not right now, when bad things could happen any second that he wasn't paying attention—while Sam absently, easily, shuffled the old deck Dean had gotten out of his room.

Sam nervously put the deck back on the table when Dean sat down across from him, but Dean ignored that while he opened his soda and pretended to be savoring the first sip. "War?" he said. When Sam nodded, Dean reached over and cut the deck. "Split it for us?"

Sam took the cards, tapped the deck twice between his hands to even out the cards—a nervous tic, but one that Sam had had since they were kids—and split the deck in half with one smooth motion and handed Dean his half.

Dean counted, automatically, vaguely dreading finding too many cards in his deck, or even needing to hand Sam one, but he had a perfect twenty-six.

Dean grinned at him when he was done. Sam hadn't even bothered to count, just watched him with mild worry. "You're too damn good at this," Dean said.

Sam shook his head and almost smiled and rolled his eyes, and just like that they were kids again, and Dean had finally poked and joked and acted goofy with him long enough to get Sam to give him an honest-to-goodness exasperated response. Just like that, Dean felt so fucking good that even when Sam nervously took the first three plays—all the fucking twos were in Dean's hand, and apparently on top—he couldn't keep the silly grin off his face.

War took forever, but that was okay, because every second the cards passed over the table and between their hands, Sam looked a little more relaxed.

Dean swept all the cards up after War and shuffled with practiced ease. He preferred pool hustling to card sharking—part of him admitted he liked the possibility of violence, the fact that any second the con could go wrong and then he'd be up against some pissed-off dudes holding long sticks—but he could still play cards like a Vegas dealer. He grinned at Sam. "Crazy Eights?" 

When Sam grinned back, real enjoyment in his eyes, Dean thought his heart would stop. "I won last time," he pointed out.

Dean tried to contain the swell of hope and happiness that hit him, all because Sam was  _teasing_ him. “Think you remember the rules?” he said lightly.

He didn’t expect Sam’s face to pale, his hands to tense on the table. But at least Sam didn’t fall back into his shell, he didn’t retreat, and he didn’t drop his eyes for more than a couple seconds before looking back up at Dean like he was prepared for Dean to tell him to drop them, like he was braced for Dean to do his worst and Sam would meet it, accept it, could take it. “Unless you’ve changed them,” Sam said softly. “I remember.”

Fuck, it had been…probably seven months since they had played anything. The whole fucking six months, and then about a month before that because Dean couldn’t always get over to Nevada and didn’t always bring a deck of cards even when he had been able to get to Freak Camp, and in all that time…

Yeah, a guy could forget the rules. But Dean didn’t care about that, he just wanted Sam to be relaxed, easy, calm again like he had just a second ago while they were playing stupid old War.

Dean dealt out six cards each—their personal variation—and felt his stomach pitch when Sam didn’t pick them up, just watched him.

Dean couldn’t meet his eyes, just picked up his cards and turned the top one over. “If you want to play something else, that’s…I mean, we could stick with War.”  _Even though it’s boring._

Sam took a deep breath and picked up the cards. “D-Dean.”

“Yeah, Sam?”

“If I…If I f-f-forget will you…would you…” He fingered one of his cards, as though he wanted to pull it out to play but couldn’t quite get up the courage. 

“What, Sam?” Dean resisted the urge to hold his breath. _Please be something I can do._

“If I f-forget the rules, you’ll tell me, right? You won’t let me…”

Dean felt relieved, though also disturbed because Sam’s worry had seemed greater than a handful of stupid card rules—though admittedly, their personal version of Crazy Eights had gotten pretty dizzying. “It’s not Mao, Sam, you might be the one letting  _me_ know how things are supposed to go.” He forced himself to grin. “After all, you’ve got the kickass memory.” He crossed a hand dramatically over his chest. “I promise I’ll let you know if I think you’re changing the rules on me. And I promise not to try to change them if I think you’re kicking my ass.”

Sam smiled, looking somewhat relieved, and they began.

After Crazy Eights—Dean won, and was so smug that Sam rolled his eyes at him again, with more feeling this time—they played a fast and dirty round of Zsíros and Sam completely cleaned his clock, and by that time it was about one in the morning and Dean could barely keep his eyes open.

“Shit,” he said, yawning so far he thought his jaw would crack. “I’m beat, Sam. You tired?”

And there it was, that beautiful smile that Dean would sell his soul for. “You’re just wimping out because you l-lost.”

Fuck, he was trying so hard. Dean could see that he was struggling, sometimes, but he could tell that Sam was actually succeeding at not freaking out, and Dean still didn’t know what the hell was going on in his head, but Sam was fighting it, and clearly having fun, and again, Dean felt a surge of hope. He tried not to let this one sweep him away; his hopes about Sam had gotten crushed more than once just that evening, but for the first time since he’d gotten Sam out, their relationship felt the same, exactly the same as when they were kids, and this was the Sam that Dean had thought he would never see again. But he was here, right now, and that was damn good.

When they both got up to go to their bedrooms, Dean seriously considered kissing him. Looking at Sam’s face, he just…wanted, wanted so much and so many things that he couldn’t even decide what they were.

But he couldn’t. Not while seeing the bandages on Sam’s arms, not remembering how badly these first few days had gone and how little Dean understood about anything going on in Sam’s head.

Instead he reached out and squeezed Sam’s hand after he had tucked the cards back into their box.

“Goodnight, Sam,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

And for a second Sam's face lit up, and he looked so happy that Dean thought that maybe, just maybe, this would work after all.


	6. Chapter 6

Saturday morning Dean grew a pair and pulled out the frying pan to cook up scrambled eggs and bacon. He told Sam to drop a couple slices of bread in the toaster and pour the orange juice, tasks Sam handled as precisely as ever. Dean let him carry them out without glancing over once, determined not to make him nervous. It was worth it to see the vast relief on Sam's face when he set the second glass of orange juice on Dean's side of the table. 

Dean beamed at him. "Thanks, Sam. Could you get me a plate and some of those paper towels?"

This was progress, he reflected. They still hadn't been together a full week, so of course things were rough sometimes, with hard lessons. But step by step he was figuring things out, and this worked. Sam liked helping—even if he probably wouldn't admit it if Dean asked—and that was all right, Dean could tell, so it would do for now. 

But when they sat down for breakfast, just catching sight of the TV's dead screen sent a foreboding chill through him, and Dean clenched his jaw for a moment to stay focused on the here and now. He glanced toward the window instead, at the bright sunlight and birds they could hear in the nearby trees, along with the traffic on the street. "So, Sam," he said, and waited as Sam stopped immediately, lowering his egg-and-bacon sandwich to the plate and looking up. "How'd you feel about taking a walk through town? Just you and me, you know." The reassurance felt dumb—of course he couldn't promise the streets would be empty, but he hoped Sam understood what he meant: Dean would be at his side the whole way.

Sam looked away, his forehead knit faintly, but he said, "Yes—we could, if that's—yes, Dean. I'd—l-like to go out." It didn't really sound sincere, let alone enthusiastic, but Dean took the effort and determination behind the words at face value, and reached across to squeeze Sam's arm. Sam looked back, startled enough to meet his eyes, and Dean smiled at him.

"Good. I think you'll like this town, it's a pretty rockin' place. Had to go over it a few times to make sure no one was making backyard sacrifices to a pagan god on the sly but—" He could've bitten his tongue as soon as the words slipped out; hadn't he learned not to talk about the supernatural to Sam, that, yeah, it was a pretty sensitive subject? But Sam didn't look particularly bothered, just nodded a little uncertainly.

Dean pulled his hand off Sam's arm, clapped his hands together and cleared his throat. "So, yeah, anyway—cool. As soon as we're finished, we'll grab that map in the brochure and head out."

"I studied it," Sam said to his plate.

"Yeah?" Dean paused, not sure how he was supposed to respond. The way Sam said that was a little off, but, after a second or two of trying to parse out a deeper meaning, Dean gave it up. That wasn't the same as ignoring it. He was sure about that. "Well, that's cool, Sam. Between the two of us, no way we'll get lost then."

~*~

Dean couldn't have asked for a nicer day for Sam's first Saturday out of Freak Camp. Though mid-July, Boulder's elevation in the mountains kept a light breeze moving that took the edge off the warmth. The sun didn't bake or broil them as it would down south, but the rays still bounced off the sidewalk, bright enough to make them squint. Dean made a note to duck into a store and get Sam a pair of sunglasses at the first opportunity.

The residential street was quiet, aside from the occasional passing car. No one was out—either sleeping in or already busy with weekend activities someplace else, Dean figured. As they neared the end of the block, he pulled the map out of his pocket and shook it open. It was already worn and falling apart at the creases. "So," he said, bracing himself to ask even though he didn't have a hope Sam would answer, "when you were checking this out, did you find anything in Boulder you wanted to see?"

Sam glanced over, head tilted down—from the glare, Dean told himself—and shrugged, an awkward twitch of his shoulders.

"Well," Dean said, drawing his finger down from their block, "downtown's here, but—let's check that out some other time. There's a few parks, and it's a sweet day for a walk...I think this is the main one, Central Park. It's a ways, though—you up to walking that far?"

Sam nodded.

"You sure?"

Sam nodded once more, and Dean wondered—but what were they going to do, turn back and stay inside all day? He had to take Sam at his word, or they'd never get anywhere. The best he could do was keep an eye on Sam for any sign of exhaustion. Add that to the list.

They walked in silence for another block. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean watched Sam focus on the pavement, placing his feet in an unwavering line, and despite Dean's best intentions to _back off_ and not breathe down his neck every minute, he couldn't keep himself from pointing up, ready to grab any opportunity to get Sam to look less damn stressed.

"Hey, Sam, check it out. Some idiot tossed their shoes up into that tree."

Sam's eyes followed Dean's finger to a pair of battered shoes—linked by their laces—looped over a tree branch. Then he stopped walking, and Dean stopped, too.

Sam's lips parted, and his head tilted all the way back as he stared straight up. The reaction made Dean hold his breath for a moment, but Sam didn't look upset. On the contrary, this was open wonder, amazement on his face, and Dean didn't think it was about a pair of stupid shoes.

He looked up again, trying to see what Sam saw. There was just the tree—really tall, yeah, the lowest branch thick as his thigh and higher than he could reach, the whole thing vibrantly green and crawling in ivy, leaves rustling and swaying in the gentle breeze like the tree was talking to itself.

"It's..." Sam breathed, and Dean was amazed to see a real smile growing on his face, an honest-to-God smile. "It's—" He still didn't finish, like he didn't have any words that fit. And for Dean—who had learned in the last few days how damn slow he could be—it finally clicked.

Freak Camp didn't have any trees.

He stopped himself from leaning over to kiss Sam's cheek, though just barely. He did catch Sam's hand, and Sam squeezed back hard as he looked at Dean, turning that breathtaking, fragile smile on him. 

"Well," Dean said, keeping his voice normal with a valiant effort, though his cheeks felt awfully hot (July, of course), "sounds like the park was a pretty good idea, huh?"

Sam didn't watch the sidewalk, after that. He stared up at the trees, birds, and squirrels, breathless and awed in a  _good_ way, hanging tight to Dean's hand. Dean couldn't get enough of it; he felt light with relief. Finally, he'd done something right. There had been more than a few mishaps along the way—the texture of the gauze under Dean's fingertips was plenty of a reminder of how delicate everything still was and how fast it could slide to hell. But right now, this was good. This was everything.

They paused at the next major intersection (no stop lights, just those funny round-about things) for Dean to let go of Sam's hand and pull out the map, but before he could figure out how far they'd come, Sam said, "Straight, five more blocks to Broadway." Pausing, he added, "Unless you want to take 9th south, then there's seven." He flushed and looked down at his shoes.

Dean stared at the map, counting the blocks. "Holy shit, Sam. When'd you...that's a badass memory you've got."

Sam turned even more pink, not raising his face. Dean had had enough of that, though, especially when Sam had proven yet again that he was amazing, and he lifted Sam's chin to lean in and kiss him once on the corner of his mouth. "I mean it," he said, looking him in the eye. "That's badass."

Now looking like he had a serious sunburn, Sam ducked his head, but close to Dean, brushing his forehead to Dean's shoulder. That was okay, Dean decided. He stuffed the map in his back pocket, still smiling. "Looks like we won't need this." 

The streets got busier, lined with shops instead of houses, as they got closer to downtown. People were out and about with Saturday shopping—or loitering—and Sam stayed closer to Dean's side, but they were still okay. Dean decided on 9th Street as a better bet, so they wouldn't go through the heart of downtown. 

It was a long walk, and by the time they got close to the park, Dean was fantasizing about refreshment stands with the intensity he usually reserved for a bath at the end of a long, gory hunt. Those icee lemonade ones in particular came close to certain orgasms, on a hot day. Fuck, he wanted one of those, or a  _snowcone_ , more than he wanted an ice cold beer or a new handgun for Christmas. And he bet Sam would like them too. At the least, they would be a cool, sugary treat after a hot walk, and who  _wouldn't_ want that? 

Dean had a vague memory of the park—he hadn't like, taken a stroll through it, more of a drive-by in the Impala when he was checking out the area—but he remembered it being big and grassy, and he'd met more than one native Boulderite who adored it. He'd figured if Sam could be awestruck by one tree, he'd enjoy a whole bunch of them.

That was, of course, before he had learned to look at things the way Sam saw them. 

When the park came into sight, Dean's first impression was not of the thick, sprawling trees, nor the open space of the lawn beyond, sloping down toward a man-made pond. His primary reaction was solely, _fuck, where did all these people come from?_  and then _It's a fucking Saturday, Dean Winchester, try remembering the days of the week sometime_. 

People were everywhere—biking and running along the trails, children racing with dogs over the lawns, couples stretched out on blankets under the trees. It was practically as crowded as a Friday night karaoke bar at happy hour.

They both stopped at the sight of the crowds, and for a moment Dean couldn't to look at Sam, dreading what he would see, how colossal of a mistake he'd made. He braced himself, prepared to say they'd had enough of a walk and could turn back. But when he glanced at Sam's paled face, his widened eyes were focused ahead intently, not on the ground. His left hand was clenched around his right, but he hadn't frozen yet and didn't look panicked. 

Dean pushed his hand in between Sam's, breaking them apart. Sam's eyes went to him, wide and startled, and Dean offered a tight smile. "You ready to head back? There were plenty of trees the way we came and it was, y'know, less crowded."

Sam's brow furrowed, and his eyes dropped to the pavement, but he just looked like he was thinking about it, not retreating inside himself. "This...this is the park?"

"Yep. Trees, grass...and people. Just civvies, families, out to catch some rays and play fetch with Fido or whatever. You know, whatever basic stuff normal people do." Dean sighed. "We can always come back later, like, Monday. It should be a lot emptier then."

Sam was watching him again with that furrow of worry. He glanced at the park ahead of them, took a tighter grip on Dean's hand, and said, "W-we could...walk through it. If th-that's what you wanted to do, here. If you think—" Sam swallowed. "That w-would be okay, with—me."

Dean unconsciously held his breath while Sam spoke, trying to not just hear what he was saying but really listen and not miss anything. "Only if you feel up to it, Sam. I mean—it's not like anyone's going to bother you here."  _Just let them try, they'll never knew what hit 'em._

"I'm okay," Sam said, and surely that determination was enough courage to see them through. Even with (Dean took a full moment to appreciate the irony) a walk in the park.

It wasn't so bad once they stepped onto the dirt path under the trees. Sam wasn't looking around as freely as he had before they were confronted by the crowds, but he seemed to be holding it together pretty well. Biting back the urge to start rambling, Dean swept his gaze over the walking options ahead of them and chose a clearing a little further down as their first marker.

Joggers passed them, but Sam only twitched closer to Dean's side when a man, wearing short shorts and headphones, ran toward them with two decent-sized Dobermans in tow. Dean moved to the far side of the path, putting plenty of space between them, and the dogs passed with barely a sniff in their direction.

Sam was completely distracted by the people, the trees, the occasional bird singing or mouse-squirrel-thing scampering around, but Dean was on the lookout for more diversions, a backup plan of keep-Sam-smiling. Dean didn't like his odds with the frisbee throwers, the spandex-clad exercisers or the stoned-looking smokers hanging out around one bench, but just as he was getting a nervous, he saw a couple of kids. One, a small girl in a frilly dress, licked at a chocolate ice cream cone—one practically dripping with chocolate syrup and rainbow sprinkles—and crouched near one corner of the bench, staring intensely at a line of ants. The other kid—an older boy—sat on the bench and swung his feet while eating strawberry ice cream from a small cup. He seemed to be enjoying it, but Dean guessed by the way he always kept an eye on the little girl, even when carefully scraping drops of ice cream away from the edge, that he was her brother. Family, at the very least.

But more important than the kids, there was ice cream, which would satisfy Dean's desire for something cold _and_  give Sam the treat of his life.

"Hey there," Dean said, as he and Sam drifted closer. He noticed Sam twitching when he spoke, pulling a little bit away from the children, making sure that Dean was firmly between him and the children. Dean let him—he had no problem being Sam's shield—and smiled at the kids, nodding his chin at the ice cream. "Where'd you get those?" 

The boy's eyes narrowed suspiciously on Dean, abandoning even the allure of ice cream, but the girl gave him a look that made it clear he was a complete idiot. She gave the cone another lick, and then pointed with one syrupy hand at a permanent food stall labeled  _Two Spoons_  about a hundred feet away. "Right over there."

Dean wasn't sure how a kid no more than six could make him feel mentally deficient. "Yeah? It's the real deal?"

The boy set his ice cream bowl carefully on the bench and slid forward, clearly ready to engage. "Who wants to know?"

The girl ignored him and shrugged with exaggerated nonchalance. "It's okay."

"Yeah, thanks." Dean decided that discretion was the better part of valor—and ice cream was more important than getting into a fist fight with an overprotective eight-year-old—and gently steered Sam toward the ice cream stand.

They were fifty feet away when Two Spoons got swarmed, out of nowhere, by what looked like half the student body of the local college. Loud, exuberant college kids. Dean realized, abruptly, that this was a prime example of a situation he should not drag Sam into.

He stopped, hand on Sam's elbow as he assessed the situation. They had just reached a neat clearing with a shallow amphitheater set into the ground. Some women sat chatting on the steps opposite as a couple small children played in the middle. The frisbee kids were on the other side of the clearing, closer to the tree line, and there were trees, lots of benign, gently rustling trees, and everyone minding their own business.

Dean turned to face Sam, keeping his hands lightly on his arm and looking him in the eye. "Hey, Sam, I'm going to go get us some ice cream, but just stay here, okay? I don't want you to have to mess with those kids. I'll be right over there and then back in two seconds, you'll be able to see me the whole time. And then, man, are you in a treat of your lifetime because pie is the  _best_ but ice cream is the second best. Does that sound okay, Sam? Because if it's not, we can get it together or...skip it, for today at least."

He could see blind panic creeping into Sam's face, but Sam swallowed and nodded once, and Dean was so damn proud of him, he could have kissed him, but that was  _not_ the right idea to keep low-profile. Instead he squeezed Sam's arm once before walking away, quickly. The quicker he went, the sooner he'd be back.

~ 

As Sam watched Dean go, he tried to suppress the feeling that the park was expanding in every direction to swallow him, dozens of other reals suddenly closer to him than Dean was. But Dean was counting on him to handle this, and Sam had to show he could. Dean didn't have to hold his hand every time they stepped out of the apartment, he just had to do as Dean said and...stay where he was.

But he already knew that standing in one spot and staring at his feet was conspicuous behavior in the real world (and something Dean wanted him to stop). So he took a deep breath, pushed his hands carefully into his jeans pockets, and looked around.

No one was staring yet. The three reals about Dean's age continued throwing their disc back and forth, the women on the steps chatted on. Beyond the clearing, children shrieked in happiness as they called for pets or parents. Sam had been immensely relieved, earlier, when those dogs with the jogger hadn't gone after him. Victor had once told him all dogs knew how to run down monsters, but maybe some reals' dogs hadn't been trained or encountered enough freaks. 

"Amy, I want a turn! Give it to me!"

Sam turned to see two kids near the edge of the lawn—one girl maybe a couple years younger than him, and a smaller girl who was probably her sister. The older girl was running backwards, away from her, holding her hands up and watching the sky. Following his gaze, Sam couldn't stop his mouth from dropping open. A large birdlike creature fluttered—no, not alive, he saw a moment later, though it shivered, dipped, and swayed like a living thing—against the flawlessly blue sky, its skin a patchwork design of the brightest colors he had ever seen, the whole thing somehow hovering above the tree line, controlled from below. Sam took a few cautious steps closer while the thing wavered and twisted under the bickering children's haphazard control, never letting him get a good look at it.

"Hey, watch out!"

Sam turned, just in time to see an object hurtling toward his head, and he threw himself out of the way. Instinct, honed by years of surviving monster brawls and the guards' boredom, had him rolling when he hit the ground, twisting to get back to his feet as quickly as possible to face, assess, and deal with (or submit to) the threat before it took his head off with a second projectile.

But instinct had never had to deal with variable terrain, and when he tried to regain his balance, his foot slipped off the edge of the top step. 

He fell down the stairs. For a second, he fought with the conflicting need to get away from the threat and panic at the idea of getting farther away from Dean, before the knowledge that he wasn't going to stop until he reached the bottom helped him focus on simply surviving the moment... 

Hitting the ground hurt, but he'd had worse. Sam focused on pushing himself to his hands and knees and breathing, cataloging damage, seeing what handicaps he'd have in whatever happened next. He kept his eyes closed—easier not to be identified as a threat if, like with guards, he wasn't allowed to look at reals —and tried to slow down his heart.

Distantly, he heard laughter, followed by someone yelling, "Don't be a jackass, Andy!" but no one seemed to be chasing him down right away. Projectiles were good, sometimes—if you could survive the first one—because they provided time to recover before the enemy arrived.

Scraped hands, one elbow throbbing from bashing it into a stair, and a pain flared in his left ankle every time he tried to move. Fuck. So much for being able to take care of himself for two minutes. When Dean realized he had moved, found out how useless Sam was, he was going to—

When he heard footsteps approaching, he pulled his legs in to protect his stomach and tried to shift to put his back against the stairs he'd fallen down. He kept his eyes closed and his arms on the ground, hoping that the person would just keep walking, wasn't coming to kick him. Not that that wasn't their right—and he couldn't so much as touch them without maybe losing a hand—but he could hope.

When a worried, female voice right above him said, "Honey, are you hurt?" his eyes snapped open.

The woman—one of the mothers from the other side of the circle, with shoulder-length brown hair and colorful clay caught under her fingernails—was bending down to touch him, her long, loose hair close enough to swing into his face.

He couldn't stop himself from shoving backward, away from the threat, even though that just scraped his back—and his new shirt from Dean, damn damn damn—along the concrete of the stairs. He had to stop himself. He couldn't run away from reals, not when he didn't know if they were from the ASC, not when he didn't know where Dean was, but he couldn't stop himself.

It only got worse when he caught a glimpse of three reals on the top of the steps, looking both guilty and concerned. They were  _behind_ him, he was cornered, and when Dean found him...Sam forced himself to stop, digging his fingers into the thin creases in the blocks of the stairs and willing himself to stay still. It wouldn't be worse if he stayed still than if he tried to run and didn't actually have an escape. His best—only—hope right now was that Dean would come soon. Dean had to come soon. 

"Hey, you okay?" the young woman at the top of the steps asked. "Sorry about that, we weren't trying to hit you."

Sam closed his eyes and tucked his chin close to his chest. His best option now was to stay silent, to avoid any questions the reals might ask. Maybe that way they wouldn't know, wouldn't call the ASC, and he wouldn't have gotten Dean into trouble ( _and end in Freak Camp_ ). That plan had a modicum of hope. He didn't automatically look like a freak, didn't have the full-body, genetic tattoos of a djinn or vampire fangs. And the shirts Dean had bought for him had high necks so no one could see his tattoo unless the collar was jerked down. But just beneath the surface of his calculations, he knew that none of that mattered because he was a freak and they would be able to see right through him. They were reals and they would know and jerk away in horror, and their outrage that he had ever tried to pass himself off as one of them would sweep out of them, and the ASC would be close, maybe one of those very same people who watched him with worried, neutral eyes, and they would drag him back to Freak Camp because  _Dean wasn't there_.

 _Please, please go away.  
_  
It didn't work. The woman knelt beside him, right by him, and her voice went even softer. "Where does it hurt? Did you break something?" She reached for the arm he held against his chest, and Sam couldn't hold back a sharp noise of protest as he pushed himself back again.

"What's wrong with him?" someone above muttered.

"Shh. I think he's like, special needs."

They were figuring it out. Sam curled over on himself, forehead almost touching his knees, but through his hair he could see the woman staying where she was, raising her hands, palms out. "Okay," she said, voice level. "Sweetie, I'm not going to hurt you. Can you tell me if there's someone I can call? Do you have a card?"

Sam had no idea how to respond, but he didn't have to. Right then he heard pounding steps come over the grass and a shout of "Sam!" He sagged in relief, though he didn't raise his head even when Dean leaped down to the stones beside him. Dean might be mad at him for being so clumsy and stupid and drawing so much attention, but at least he'd make the reals go away.

"Sam—" Dean took hold of his shoulders, tight but without squeezing to hurt, and Sam let out another shaky exhale. "Sam, I'm so sorry. I saw you fall from the stand and—shit, are you hurt?"

Sam shook his head.

"His elbow's bleeding," the woman said, gesturing slightly, as though hoping Sam wouldn't notice the motion. 

Dean released his shoulder to look at his arm, and swore again.

"Hey dude," one of the disc throwers said. "I don't think you should leave your friend alone, especially if he's like, autistic."

"He is not—" Now Dean sounded furious. "Don't you have to go assault some other kids or smoke some weed, asswipe? Get lost." Muttering, they moved off. He twisted around to look at the woman next, though he kept a firm grip on Sam's other shoulder, anchoring him.

"Looks like your friend needs some help," she said, tone unfathomable. "Is he yours?"

"Yes," Dean snapped without hesitation, hand tightening. Though Sam had no idea what would be the consequences of this fiasco, he still felt a wave of giddy relief as Dean claimed him.

"Well, my sister Janet manages the bagel store on the corner, and I know they have a fully stocked first-aid kit. We could go over there to get him fixed up, it won't be a problem."

"I—" Dean began, then stopped. Sam remained motionless, forehead to his knee, barely daring to breathe. "Yeah," Dean said finally. "That would be great, thanks. Sam, can you get up?"

Sam nodded, but Dean still reached under his arms to help him stand. Sam sucked in his breath, tested his weight on his ankle, and wobbled.

"Shit," Dean said again. "Did you twist your ankle?"

Sam hesitated, unwilling to lie directly, not sure anyway if it was true.

"Can he walk?" the real woman asked. 

Sam nodded. He had managed under much worse. To his shock, though, Dean didn't move away, but stepped beside him and slid an arm under his shoulders.

"C'mon, Sammy, lean on me. It's not far, is it?"

"Not at all." She turned to lead the way back up the stairs. She scooped up one of the toddlers on her way and said something to her friend, before waiting for Sam and Dean at the top.

Sam could have been up the stairs—especially if he had been permitted to drop to his hands and knees—in a couple seconds, but it took longer with Dean supporting him. Hurt less, too. Sam swallowed, forced himself to move past the astounding sensation of Dean so close,  _supporting_ him, to take advantage of the moments when the real would be out of earshot. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Dean snapped. "Falling? Not your fault. I shouldn't have left, I'm the one who fucked up. Goddammit. Don't listen to those douchewads, Sam, they're just assholes who don't know anything."

It took him a minute to realize what Dean was talking about. "Better than the t-truth," he said quietly, and Dean stiffened, stopping them both for a moment, while the woman waited patiently, bouncing her toddler on her hip.

"Well, we're going to have a talk about that when we get home," he said at last, and Sam's skin went clammy and cold, everything swimming before he regained his balance. He wouldn't panic yet about whatever was going to happen when they got home. Because their first destination was a  _bagel shop_.

"I'm Maryann, by the way," the woman ahead of them called. "And this little soldier is Thomas."

"Dean. And this is Sam."

"Are you boys new to Boulder? Students?"

"No—well yeah, we just moved here, but we're not students. Just...looking for a fresh start."

Maryann's cheerful tone didn't waver. "Well, you've come to the right place. Boulder's a good town, not as crazy and crowded as Denver or a lot of college towns. We do have the occasional fun surprises from the frat boys, but they also do a lot of good volunteer work. And in summer they're not too bad on the eyes." She grinned wickedly. "Now, don't you tell my husband I said that or get any ideas yourself, I'm taken. Whereabouts town do you live?" 

Dean named the cross streets nearest them, and Maryann chatted on about her favorite places around the city—mainly the hiking trails, Boulder Creek, and the Underwater Fish Observatory—as they crossed the street to Moe's Broadway Bagels. Sam kept his eyes on the pavement the whole way, but he had to glance up as they reached the door, which opened with a cheery bell chime. The shop was packed with small round tables, reals crammed around, most of them drinking from sturdy paper cups, eating bread rounds and talking animatedly. Some eyes flickered their way, but no one so much as hesitated in their conversation.

Maryann headed purposefully to the back, while they hovered awkwardly by the door. Dean shifted, adjusting his grip under Sam's arm, and exhaled as though about to speak, though he didn't say anything. Sam bit back the urge to apologize again for ruining their day. Dean didn't seem to like it when he said sorry, no matter how he messed up.

Maryann reappeared a moment later, beckoning them through a swinging door in the back, where a huge woman—maybe a couple inches shorter than Dean, and at least twice his width—had already opened up a large first aid kit on the counter.

"Boys, this is my sister Janet. Janet, Sam and Dean. Sam had a tumble down those steps in the park."

"Those stairs are a death trap," Janet sighed, popping open a bag of cotton balls. "I just know one day I'm going to see a kid fall and break his head open and then folk are going to come crying to me and I'll have to bite my tongue on all the I told you so's just so they keep buying the bagels. Go ahead, take a seat." 

Sam froze, unnerved at the idea of leaving Dean's side, not sure if he should obey orders from all reals or just Dean, but Dean nudged him toward the chair, and Sam dropped into it, feeling his stomach clench and his head start up a steady stream of mostly incoherent panic. But Dean had  _told_ him to. He took a bracing breath and held onto the edges of his seat like just staying in place now would make it up to Dean for how much he had fucked up the day.

"Where'd you get hurt, Sam?" Janet asked.

Sam darted a look toward Dean, who was watching him with a familiar frown, though there was something else about it that Sam couldn't read. That look squeezed his chest hard, like Victor pressing his boot down to hold him in place.

"I think his elbow got pretty beat up," Maryann said from the doorway, bouncing Thomas gently on her hip. She was watching Sam too. Dean and two reals focusing on  _him_.

Janet reached for Sam's arm, one hand gripping his wrist as the other began pulling his shirt sleeve up, and he couldn't help himself. He didn't try to pull away—he knew what happened when someone resisted—but he made a pathetic, half-choked whimper as he turned his head and body away. _No, not in front of Dean, please don't_...

"Hey, hey," Dean said, moving forward quickly. "Let me do that." His fingers replaced Janet's, much more gentle and familiar, and Sam steadied himself, breathing a little easier. He felt mortified, distantly aware this was not the way he should be behaving and that there would be horrible  _consequences_ which he deserved. But for now, at least, he had Dean's hands back on him, and that alone was reassuring. He would never balk from whatever Dean wanted to do with him.

Janet stepped closer to her sister, and the two women whispered together while Dean turned Sam's arm gently to bring his elbow to light. Sam couldn't hear what they were saying, but after about a minute, Maryann turned her smile back on them. "We'll give you boys some space to clean up," she said, and they and the little boy moved out, letting the door swing shut behind them.

Sam let out his first full exhale, dropping his head to his chest. Dean's hand was immediately on his cheek, tilting his face back up. "Hey, Sam. Sam. No one here's going to hurt you."

Sam swallowed hard, forcing his eyes to stay on Dean's. "I'm sorry," he said, unable to help it. "I'm so sorry—"

"Stop that." Dean's fingers tightened on his face in emphasis, and Sam flinched and dropped his gaze. "No, look—you've got to stop thinking everything is your fault. You fell. It was an accident. I'm not  _mad_ because you got hurt, Sammy, or because you're still spooked around other people. I just want you to believe that these civilians don't want to hurt you. They're trying to help, that's all. You've got to trust them."

Drawing a shaky breath, Sam nodded, even though he felt like he was falling apart. He couldn't do what Dean asked, he only barely believed Dean was telling him this because he trusted Dean to tell him the truth.

"Hey." Dean's voice dropped even softer. "You believe me, don't you?"

He could tell that Sam didn't, and Sam was losing control fast now. Fuck, this day had started so  _well_. He sniffed hard, drawing his hand up to press his thumb and fingers into his eyes. "J-just—if any of them knew the t-truth, Dean—"

"Aw, Sammy." Dean moved closer, his arms folding around Sam's back, bringing his head against Sam's shoulder. It was that  _holding_ thing again, the last thing Sam deserved at this point, and it was so bizarre, erasing the last particles of sense Sam's world had, that it broke him the rest of the way. Sam collapsed, shoulders shaking as he cried into Dean's shirt, and Dean didn't let him go. He kept repeating  _he_ was sorry, and that he wouldn't leave him alone again.

Sam got a hold of himself before long. A few deep breaths, clenching his hand in the front of Dean's shirt, and then he pulled himself up, wiping his eyes.

Dean still touched him, drawing his thumb down his cheek, close to the corner of his mouth. "It's gonna get better." He sounded like he was telling himself as much as Sam. "It'll get better, I promise."

Then Dean rolled up Sam's sleeve, pressing a wet tissue to the bloody patch of skin above the gauze Dean had wrapped him in yesterday, and opening a bottle of rubbing alcohol to dip a cotton ball in. "This'll burn a bit," he said quietly, meeting Sam's gaze. "Sorry, I just want to get it clean. It'll be worse otherwise."

Sam nodded, prepared himself, but like yesterday with the scratches, hardly felt it when Dean touched the cotton to his skin. Dean watched him, brow knit, but said nothing until he finished pressing a large bandage into place. "There." He sat back on his heels, though he didn't look satisfied. His eyes landed on Sam's extended leg. "Oh, yeah, your ankle." He grabbed a cold pack from the kit, cracked it sharply over his thigh, then moved to feel Sam's ankle, between his sock and pants cuff. Sam's leg twitched involuntarily. "That hurt?"

"No," Sam said automatically, then forced himself to focus. "It's just—a little throb by the ankle. Doesn't hurt right now."

"Yeah, but it will when you stand up." Dean set the pack in place—Sam could feel the cold seeping through his sock immediately—and wrapped a length of gauze around it to keep it in place. "Okay?" He looked up at him.

Sam nodded, and Dean got to his feet, reaching to brush the back of his hand along the curve of Sam's cheek. "It's gonna be okay," he repeated. "We'll be all right." He dropped his hand. "I'm going to go tell those chicks we're done, okay? And then catch a bus or something to get back up to our side of town. I'll be just on the other side of the door the whole time, I promise."

Sam nodded again, eyes down.

Dean hesitated a moment before leaving. When the door swung shut, Sam had to fight the panic that tried to crawl up his throat. This time he wouldn't move. He wouldn't so much as flinch, no matter what happened—it was unlikely something else would come flying at his head, but not impossible—because he had to be here when Dean came back. Sam curled his arm on the edge of the counter, leaning his head against it, and listened to Dean talk.

"Hey, thanks for everything, we're all finished. Let me give you something for the supplies we took—"

"No, no, absolutely not. This is the least I can do for two kids new to Boulder."

"I insist—"

"Put it away, hon. You ain't giving me a penny. Look, you really want to pay me back, come around sometime and have some bagels and coffee. When your friend's feeling better." 

"So—" That was Maryann's voice, quiet, worried, but with a layer of steel under the surface. "What's the story?"

Despite himself, Sam tensed. He knew Dean wouldn't actually tell these reals the truth and put either of them in that situation, but he didn't know what Dean  _could_ say to explain how messed up and  _freakish_  Sam was.  _This is all your fault because you can't act normally, just making trouble, he'll be sick of you so soon._

But Dean was already answering, hardly a pause. "Sam had a really, really hard time growing up. His mom tossed him in a courthouse when he was just a toddler, and he went through a whole string of foster homes, and none of them should have ever been given a goldfish, much less a kid. Down in Louisiana, you know, the whole system's screwed up there. My dad works in social services, so I met Sam a bunch of times when he was getting reprocessed after the latest batch of shitheads—well, I know he doesn't look it, small for his age, but he just turned eighteen, and I promised him if he wanted stay with me while he got on his feet, he could."

"Damn them and bless his heart," Janet muttered. "I knew it couldn't be anything good, the way he was jumping, but something like that.... Poor kid."

"Bless  _your_ heart for taking him in," Maryann said. "Few boys your age would take on a responsibility like that." 

"Yeah, well—" Now Dean sounded embarrassed, unlike the smooth, convincing flow of his cover story. "It's just, Sam. I mean. We kinda—"

"That's all right." Maryann's tone had a slight current of amusement. "You don't have to explain to us. Just keep on taking good care of him."

"Of course." Dean sounded confident again. "Hey, just one more thing—we walked down from our neighborhood, and I thought we'd just walk back, but with this—do you know what bus will take us by 20th and Pine?"

"Oh, don't worry about it, hon," Janet said. "I can give you a ride home myself."

"No, seriously, you don't have to—"

"Please, let me. These layabouts can handle the store without me for, what, half an hour, tops? And it'll be easier on Sam too. He's already been through a lot today, at least I'm a familiar face. An afternoon bus can scare the bejeezus out of stronger folk than him, and if you're still learning the system...I insist."

"Not to pressure you into anything," Maryann interjected. "Do whatever seems best for you both. The number 14 bus can also get you to that area, and there's a stop for it right around the corner." 

"Well—" Dean sounded torn. "I wouldn't normally, but—since you offered—it'd probably be better to take on public transportation some other day."

"Not a problem. I'll tell Dan I'm heading out, then I'll pull my car around."

Dean came back into the office, and Sam tilted his head up, relief making him dizzy. "You heard that, Sammy?" He nodded, and Dean crouched down to be on eye level. "That okay with you? Tell me if it isn't, and we'll work something else out."

Sam tried to smile, though he wasn't sure it came out right. "'S fine, Dean."

"Okay." Dean rested his hand on Sam's knee, sending good shivers through his body that he hoped didn't show. "We'll be home soon." 

~*~ 

By the time they got into the backseat of Janet's Honda, Sam seemed pretty zoned out. He sat with his hands between his knees and head limp against the seat behind him, eyes partly shut, staring out the window, apparently without registering anything passing. Despite himself, Dean kept glancing at him every few seconds.

Janet kept up an easy monologue that required little or no participation, pointing out Boulder sights, alternately bashing and praising the neighbors and government. When they stopped on their block, Dean leaned forward and pulled out his wallet.

"At least let me tip you for being a stellar tour guide."

Janet chuckled. "Excellent. That'll let me break even on these bagels." She grabbed a five from Dean's hand and handed him a heavy brown bag with a Moe's Broadway logo. Dean almost dropped it from the unexpected weight.

"This is way too much," Dean said. He'd seen the prices in the shop, and knew that he was holding more than five dollars worth of bagels.

"Nope. That's the plan, kid. Do a good deed, get the new kids addicted to the bagels, net gain of karma  _and_ new customers. Come by the shop again when you're feeling better, yeah?" She winked. "And if you need a fix before then, give us a call. We deliver for the cute ones."

Dean chuckled. "Will do. C'mon, Sam." Dean reached back toward him, hesitating before he made contact, not sure how Sam would react to being touched now.

He didn't need to worry, though, because Sam jumped from being utterly still to scrambling for the door handle the second he heard his name. He paused outside the Honda as Dean got out, and Dean waved at Janet before they moved up their stairs and back over the salt lines.

"You look wiped," Dean said, putting the bag of bagels on the table and resisting the urge to brush Sam's hair away from his eyes, touch his forehead. He didn't need to see Sam flinch again today. "You wanna, uh, lay down for a while, rest up?" Sam blinked slowly, eyes not moving from a spot above Dean's right shoulder. Dean wondered if he had hit his head in the fall and the effects were only kicking in. "Sure you're not hurt anywhere else?"

"No—I mean, yes, I..." Sam touched his forehead, looking confused, lost. Finally he said, even more softly, "I'll go lie down."

"Okay, Sam," Dean said, a little too heartily, and winced at himself. "You do that."

Once Sam disappeared into his room, Dean went to the kitchen for a beer. He knew by now Sam would be out for the next few hours at least—hell, he didn't expect anything less after the day they'd had (Dean's fault  _again_ )—and he thought he could easily pass out himself if he lay down, but that wasn't an option. He had to try to unwind a little, or he didn't know how he'd be able to handle...whatever would happen when Sam got up.

He set the beer on the counter, reached to twist the top off, and paused, looking at it. Then he put the bottle away and got out his single trusty shot glass and the bottle of Jack in the back of the cabinet (that was ridiculous too, as though he had to hide it from Sam or was ashamed or something). He poured himself a generous fingerful, tossed it back, followed quickly by a second. He started for a third pour, then stopped, looked at the label, and set the bottle down. He screwed the cap back on and shoved the bottle into the cabinet before deliberately stepping out of the kitchen.

There weren't a lot of options to keep himself occupied in the apartment, but the last thing Dean could do now was step out without telling Sam—or hell, even suggest that to him. He turned the TV on low, more for the background noise than to actually watch anything, and spread everything from his weapons duffel over the living room floor.

He was barely on his backup machete—damn thing didn't need to be cleaned or sharpened, but Dean desperately needed something to do with his hands—when he heard a low thump. He froze, his senses straining to identify the source of the sound (could be a garbage truck that didn't come in the afternoon, or neighbors above that didn't exist), his mind automatically running through all possible defenses—weapons spread over the coffee table and the floor, salt in the lower shelf with the holy water.

By the second low thump, he knew it was coming from Sam's room.

Dean didn't register getting up. He didn't notice dropping the cleaning cloth or switching the machete to his right hand. He barely stopped himself from barreling through Sam's door at full speed and taking out whatever evil son of a bitch supernatural fucker was threatening him. And even then, the only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that ghosts were  _not_  the only thing that went bump in the night and that Dean entering a room with a knife in his hand would probably be just as terrifying.

"Sam?" he called at the partially open door, trying to make his voice normal, even though his throat was clenching and he wanted to growl, wanted to scream, wanted say something in Latin or beg Sam to answer him.

He got nothing. Silence. He couldn't hear anything but his own breathing and the beating of his heart.

Cautiously, more terrified than he had been in years—since monsters had been a threat only his daddy held in check—he pushed on the door. "Sam?"

It squeaked open, and Dean poked his head through. Stupid fucking move, opening his head for an attack like that from anyone standing on either side of the doorway. But he couldn't just walk in waving a weapon, not unless he knew this was a threat and not some late-breaking psychosis.

Sam was on the bed, on top of the covers, the line of his back, the planes of his face unmistakable. He was curled up, half on his side, half on his stomach, staring at Dean, his eyes wide.

It seemed to take a second before Sam even realized he was staring. When he did—Dean could practically see the realization on his face—he dropped his eyes, turning his head like he wanted to bury his face in the covers.

"Sam?" Dean took a cautious—and possibly fatal, he kept expecting an attack—step into the room.

He barely heard the reply. "I'm sorry," Sam whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"Sam, what—" Dean glanced around. The corners were empty, the shadows looked normal, everything seemed to be in place. Then, still moving cautiously, he came to the edge of the bed, set his weapon on the floor—ignoring the little voice that sounded an awful lot like his father, telling him he was a fucking idiot for letting go of his weapon—and sat next to Sam. He took a deep breath. "Sam, are you okay?"

Sam got out a couple more low "I'm sorry"s before the question seemed to sink in. "I'm f-fine," he said, mostly into the covers.

If Da—Bobby had tried to give him shit like that, Dean would have snarled that he wasn't a fucking idiot, but...fuck.

"Sam, were you hurt somewhere I couldn't see?" A fall down concrete stairs could leave bruises, sprains, internal injuries Dean couldn't have seen from the quick check he gave Sam at the bagel shop. Sam could have been bleeding for two hours and Dean wouldn't have known. He couldn't stop one hand sliding over Sam's wrist, not holding but just touching the gauze covering it. "Sam, if you were hurt, you need—"

"I s-s-swear to you, Dean, I w-wouldn't l-l-lie to you."

Sam was curling tighter into a ball as Dean sat next to him, the wrist beneath his hand perhaps the only thing that hadn't moved, hadn't tightened protectively. Dean wanted to hug him, wanted to tell him it was okay, but he didn't even know what this was and the hunter in him had to ask the questions that he maybe didn't want an answer to. "Sam, I came in because there was a thumping sound. Did you hear that, or did I..."

Sam flinched, and turned his face completely into the pillow. His shoulders were shaking.

Dean didn't have to hear what he was saying to know. When he turned Sam over, the "I'm sorry" hit him like a blow, and even though it might not have been a good idea, even though Sam hadn't exactly reacted great the last time few times Dean had held him, he didn't have any other options.

Dean pulled him up, into his arms and held him while Sam shook. "Shhhh, it's okay, Sam."

"I'm sorry I'm such a  _freak_." Sam jerked in his arms from the force of the word, rocking the bed against the bedside table with a thud. "I'm sorry I c-c-can't stop. I'm sorry."

Thumping noise. Okay, good, not a monster coming through the window and the salt lines to kill them. Just Sam. Fuck.

"It's okay, Sam," Dean repeated, and let himself raise a hand to Sam's head, stroking his hair. He was pretty sure he was going to throw up or start bawling himself any second, but for right now he was going to hold onto the shallow, meaningless words and pray to something that maybe Sam would hear him. "It's fine."

"I c-can't stop, I t-t-try and they can s-s-see and I c-c-can't stop and I c-c-can't even be al-l-lone five m-minutes and I'm fucking it up and please, Dean, j-just make it g-go away, d-don't—"

"Sam!" Dean felt horrible for shaking him, even just a little against his shoulder, but he was terrified that if he didn't get through to Sam  _now_  he never would, there would be no way to get past this thing that he didn't understand, didn't have a handle on, and was spinning out of control. "Sam, what are you talking about?"

"In the p-park when I—you s-said, when they kn-knew, that w-we—" Sam turned his face into Dean's shoulder and kept shuddering, breathing so irregularly Dean wondered if he was about to hyperventilate. "You h-have to—p-p-p-please, Dean, I'm s-so sorry, I d-d-don't want to, I j-just c-can't—p-p-please, Dean, p-please."

Dean felt a muscle in his jaw jump. Another thing he had done to break Sam without even being aware of it. Great. Wonderful. Perfect. If he left now to throw up, Sam would fall over, and it seemed like Sam had managed to get a grip on Dean's shirt that Dean doubted he would be able to shake, but those were the only two things keeping him still against the new wave of panic and sick disgust at himself. "It's okay, Sam," he repeated, hollowly.

"Please s-stop me, Dean. Please f-f- _fix_  me. I j-just can't stop—stop being a freak."

Dean's stomach clenched. "Sam, you're not... It's okay." He kept his hand in Sam's hair slow and even, and wished that he could be somewhere else, that there was someone else that could deal with this. But there wasn't. And, honestly, when Sam was inches away from collapsing, would he really let anyone else hold Sam like this or say anything when it could mess him up even more? "Sam, you're one of the least freaky people I know."

Sam shook his head violently against Dean's shoulder. "B-but they s-s-still knew. They still  _knew_. I'm s-s-s—"

Startled, Dean straightened and rested his hand on Sam's cheek, turning his face to Dean's. It would have been the perfect kissing distance if Sam wasn't practically hyperventilating and refusing to meet his eyes. Dean was definitely some kind of pervert just for considering it. "Sam, no one knew."

"They d-did."

Dean closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against Sam's, because in that moment he wanted to hunt down the bastards that had thrown the frisbee—an accident, just a fucking accident—and feed them their own feet. He wanted to have actually read the books he was assigned in school or to have watched more chick flicks, because maybe then he would have the words to tell Sam that it wasn't true when it was. So that he could tell Sam he wasn't a freak and put the conviction of his own heart into it, without thinking about what other people would say. Because Sam wasn't a freak to him, Sam was  _Sam_ , Sam was  _everything_ , but he knew that wouldn't matter to most other people in the world, and he doubted that his own word was enough.

"They didn't know anything, Sam," he said. "They saw a...a kid, lost, maybe a little...messed up, but they did  _not_ see a freak, Sam, because you're not one."

Sam shook his head again. "Dean, you c-can't believe that, you can't l-let your guard d-d—"

"Sam, shut up." Dean brushed his fingertips over Sam's cheek, rested one hand on the back of his neck as he held him. "You're not a freak to me, ever."

"Then w-w-what..."

"You're Sam. My Sam." Dean knew he sounded like a fucking possessive psycho, but he meant it. And the second he said it, Sam sagged into his arms a little more, not so much relaxing as collapsing against him. "It's okay, Sam. I'm here, I'll always be here, I promise." And to himself, Dean made another promise, that the second Sam didn't want him there, he would be gone. Sam just had to say the word, just  _imply_ it and Dean would leave, no questions asked.

No. Fuck that. There would be questions. Like, how much money Sam needed and where he was going to stay and if he needed a way to get there and if he would really be okay. But that wasn't Dean letting this crazy obsession control him. That was just taking care of Sam, who owned far more of Dean's twisted little heart than made any sense.

"You'll tell me," Sam whispered weakly. "You'll t-tell me the s-second I'm t-t-too much. I c-can't change, Dean, but if you t-teach me..."

"Sam, you're not too much, you're  _never_ too much." Dean hoped that Sam believed it. Sam could never be the problem. It wasn't that he was too much, but that Dean wasn't enough for him. Not enough for anybody.

"I h-hate...I'm n-not always useless. I s-swear, Dean, I can be u-useful, I j-just...I j-just c-can't control...anything, Dean. I could d-do anything, n-not j-just—"

Dean's grip around Sam tightened. He hoped he wasn't hurting him, even though he wasn't sure that he would be able to loosen his grip if he was. "Sam, no, you are  _not_ a burden, and not useless, get that out of your head. You've gotta quit beating yourself up for this. This isn't a fucking cake walk, this is major shit that you're—that we're dealing with, getting you out of that hellhole, and it's going to be rough but I'm here for you, Sam, and I'm not angry or any shit like that. I mean, fuck, it's only been a couple days, and you're already doing so much better, Sam, it's okay."

"N-n-not better. T-totally..."

"Sam!" Dean was immediately ashamed of himself when Sam froze in his arms, when his voice cut off, but he had to fucking stop Sam from saying something like that when it wasn't true and still ripping him apart inside. "Sam, we were outside for three hours today, surrounded by a bunch of average Joes. You walked to a park, and you were there with me, man. You were even okay with me walking away from you when I went over to that stall." Fuck, Sam still hadn't gotten any ice cream. "You were doing  _great_  up to the second you almost got hit in the head by a flying object and fell down a flight of stairs. It's  _okay_."

Sam's reply was almost too low to hear. "I sh-should be b-better for you. More r-reliable."

Dean wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or shoot something. But what he did was stay where he was, his arms around Sam, and hold him. "Dude, most people who fall down stairs are not as chill as you. And given that this was your first time dealing with...fuck, anything that you did today, you did great. I'm proud of you, Sam. And it's okay. You'll get better, and the next time we go out I'm going to keep us far away from frisbees, and baseball diamonds, and squash matches. And, dammit, you've been doing this stuff for less than a week. Any way you react is okay, as long as you're still with me, got that, Sam?"

Sam, still not looking at him, doing little more than breathing, jerked his head. But this time it was a nod, a yes, and that...that was progress, too.

~

Sam knew he should probably be thinking about how lucky he was that he had Dean. How little he deserved him, how much pain he would be in if he had screwed up this much performing for the Director or a guard. He should be filled with nothing but gratitude for Dean for being so kind and forgiving that it made Sam shake to think of all the things that Dean could do, had every  _right_ to do, and yet didn't, for some inexplicable reason.

Of course he  _was_ thinking about all that because his brain hadn't stopped going a mile a minute since Dean had entered holding the machete—not for Sam, thank God, though he had wondered for a few seconds if his punishment was going to start at last—and then just held him.

But what he really couldn't get out of his head, as his body almost involuntarily sagged into Dean's embrace, was how the warmth of Dean's arms seemed to sink into his body, loosening parts that Sam wasn't sure had ever been relaxed in his life, making him want to cry and beg and just lie quietly, contentedly, all at the same time.

Dean wasn't angry at him. Dean was... _proud_  of him, for working hard—and Sam fucking was trying hard, keeping himself upright by force of will alone every time Dean suggested leaving, because it was important, and  _still_ fucking failing over and over—and Dean hadn't given him limits, hadn't told him he had a set number of times before the pain would start. He had just said,  _You'll get better, Sam_  and when he said it like that, Sam had to believe him.

Sure, Dean had completely ignored him when Sam had tried  _again_ to say that he could be useful, that he could pull his own weight, but Sam couldn't tell if Dean didn't want or need the help of a freak or if he really hadn't heard. Sam wanted to make it clear that he could do anything—research, blowjobs, clean, whatever Dean needed—but he wasn't sure that he had managed it. He wanted, desperately, for Dean to start using him so Sam would know what he was supposed to do, but for today it was okay if Dean didn't want to acknowledge that, because Dean was giving him the grace period Sam had been terrified he wasn't going to get. There was a learning curve, he had said as much, and Sam didn't know if at some point the beatings would start, but he knew that at least for now that point was far in the future, as long as Dean could see Sam fighting to be what Dean deserved.

Yeah, Sam was nervous, not knowing when he would cross that line, but if there was one thing he had learned in sixteen years, it was that he could learn. And if Dean said he had time, that a week wasn't long enough to deserve a beating, then Sam still had a good chance.

That was good. That was the best, and what stilled his shaking and allowed him to let go of the overwhelming terror that had gripped him the second Dean had come into his room, fearing that the talk he had promised would end in pain—or worse, FREACS—because Sam was too fucking stupid. But even past that deep reassurance, that  _hope_ , the thing that Sam couldn't get out of his head was the feel of Dean's warm, strong arms wrapping around him, protecting him, holding him up and not letting him go even when Sam began to cry on his shirt and there was nothing else to say.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: For the time being, at least, we will be moving to an every-other-week schedule, just to offer some stability and ease suspense.
> 
> Enjoy! Comments always appreciated.

They slept in the next morning. Dean wasn't surprised that Sam had exhausted himself into another deep sleep, but he was a little startled that he himself was still capable, at this point, of sleeping nine hours straight.

It wasn't like he had had any major epiphanies—and maybe that was it, maybe since he was done stewing over everything that went down, his body was just reacting, letting him absorb each new disaster like a punch and then keep going. Hell, it was as good a theory as any, and Dean was done trying to analyze and predict shit. The last six days had shown him he couldn't prepare or know what was coming, that he couldn't completely keep Sam safe in a world that had frisbees and television and, shit,  _people_ , but that didn't mean they, he, could give up. But what they had settled last night—and what Sam wouldn't forget, he hoped—was that they were gonna keep rolling. No matter how Dean fucked up, no matter what new something panicked Sam, Dean would still be there to pick up the pieces and do all he could for Sam; and as long as they were both breathing at the end of the day, as long as Dean learned at least one new thing he could avoid to make Sam's life easier, he would call the day a success. Every day you live through, right? Damned if that wasn't his new goal. 

As they sat down for breakfast and Dean opened Janet's bag of bagels, he tried to think not of what to avoid, but what Sam liked, what would be  _safe_ for him.

Trees were good. The Impala was good. Security against jackasses invading Sam's bubble was a definite plus.

Then like a flash—between the act of spreading cream cheese over a cinnamon raisin bagel and raising it to his lips—the perfect solution hit. It was blindingly simple (dangerous to trust simple things: watching _Home Alone_ , going grocery shopping had seemed simple, too): they'd go for a drive.

Fuck, yeah, these bagels were delicious. Dean had never been much of a bagel man, but he had to admit these tasted much better than the ones usually found in a hotel continental breakfast. Then again, part of that might have come straight from the energy of Dean's new plan, this new idea that seemed  _absolutely safe_. But Sam seemed to like the bagels, too (which was the important thing), so it couldn't just be in his head.

"Hey, Sam, wanna go for a drive?" 

Dean was overwhelmingly proud of Sam when he looked no more nervous than yesterday at the suggestion. He couldn't exactly lunge across the table and kiss him, but he pressed Sam's hand, smearing his fingers with cream cheese and tried to smile out all his happiness. Best of all, Sam smiled back, something like relief on his face. Yeah, well, Dean was relieved too.

After throwing the dishes into the washer and getting ready to conquer the day, they went down to the Impala that was, after all, Dean's first home. He settled back against the leather seats and let himself relax for a second, while he saw Sam out of the corner of his eye doing the same thing. It still felt so good just to be with Sam and not to be afraid (too much) that he was fucking up.

They toured Boulder, starting with the middle of the city, weaving through downtown so Sam could take in the colorful shops and outdoor cafes, the walking paths set through cobblestone medians lined with flowers. Then they circled around both halves of the university campus, Dean elaborating everything he knew by rumor or hearsay about college life. After that they branched out to other parts of the city, suburbs, strip malls, and neighborhood parks. Dean was pretty sure that some of the shop owners whose establishments they passed two or three times thought he was creeping around for nefarious ends, because Dean would circle the block any time Sam showed any interest, or even if he just noticed the soft light in Sam's eyes that meant he had found something so foreign it was fascinating. They passed an hour exploring the suburbs, with some houses set before neatly manicured lawns and others half-shrouded in turbulent greenery. The houses seemed to amaze Sam almost as much as trees.

"There's really only one family in each house?"

"Yeah, if even that," Dean said. "Sometimes it's just a couple and a dog or something."

"It's just like the books," Sam whispered. 

The only rough spot hit when Dean asked him how he was liking the day.

"I love it," Sam said. "I love being...here. With y-you. It's s-so safe."

Dean patted the Impala's dash. "I love my baby, too."  _And I love being with you, Sam._  "Gas mileage sucks, but I wouldn't trade her in for anything in the world. Dad—you know, it's been in the family for a while. And it's fucking awesome to have the car and be able to go anywhere and do anything whenever you want. You should have seen me before I turned eighteen and I had to take the fucking bus home from hunts when D—John wasn't around. It sucked. They give you such weird looks if you have a sprained wrist on a bus, Sam, or any kind of blood spatter. I had to make up a lot of shit about wild dogs and falling out of trees." Then, when Sam looked nervous and glanced out the window, Dean gave him a reassuring smile. "Hey, Sam, you're sixteen! That's when kids get their licenses. I'll teach you how to drive her if you want."

The offer didn't receive the reaction he'd expected. Sam snapped his head around, eyes large and luminous with horror. His voice shook as badly as it had the night before when he said, "You—you don't mean—the _Im-Impala_ —"

Dean made a sharp turn into an empty driveway, stopping crooked a few inches before the gray garage door, and had the Impala shut off before Sam could get another choked word out

"Sam." Dean reached to cover Sam's hand with his, appalled that he had done something else unintentionally to set Sam off, but sure, too, this was just a misunderstanding. "Sam, it's okay, there's no rush, we're not going to tackle that today. I'm just saying—I'll take you through the paces, when you're up for it. There's not many I'd let behind the wheel, but I trust you."

If anything, Sam looked twice as upset, bringing his fists up to his forehead and shaking his head rapidly. "Dean, no, no, I  _can't_ —" 

If Dean had thought Sam was close to hyperventilating the night before, that was nothing compared to now, when Sam was clearly, familiarly, on the edge of another panic attack. Quickly, Dean slid closer, grabbing one of Sam's hands and forcing it away from his forehead, to his lap, and rubbing Sam's back with his other hand. "Sam," he said, repeating it a few more times, steady and soft, to make sure he was getting through. "Hey, it's okay, I'm not going to make you do anything. You don't have to drive until you want to. It's fine, it's fine, we're okay." A distant part of him felt chilled at how routine this already was, how it was no longer surprising to have to pull Sam back from a panic attack out of the blue. 

Sam calmed down gradually, taking deep breaths and resting—not grinding—his forehead in his palm, elbow braced on the door. His eyelashes were damp with tears. "You can't," he still whispered, brokenly. "You  _can't_ t-trust m-me, please d-don't do that."

Dean didn't say anything. He leaned in instead and pressed his lips to Sam's temple, because that was the best—the only way to get through to Sam now. 

They sat for a while longer, Dean rubbing Sam's shoulders with the occasional "It's okay, Sam" or "I'm here, you're safe" or any other light, reassuring phrase that occurred to him. He waited until Sam's breathing had returned to normal before letting go of his hand and leaning back into his own seat.

"No driving," Dean promised at last. He kept the  _yet_ silent, and reminded himself that the drive had been going well until that outburst, and Sam seemed calm again, few traces of his panic left in his expression or body language. So there was no reason that Dean had to turn them back around to the condo like he had been planning a second ago. Indeed, Sam looked fairly composed, maybe reassured by the hand on his back, maybe by Dean's nonsensical but steady reassurances.

Dean felt like a storm had passed, leaving him untouched. Or maybe, more accurately, he had managed to fight his way to the eye and the calm. There was chaos and misery and pain all around them, but here, in this quiet space, Sam was watching him through his lashes—not exactly looking him in the eye, but closer, and Dean felt better for it—and only the tight fist on his own pants showed that he had even been stressed a second ago.

And, fuck, Sam had done things like that even when Dean  _hadn't_ known that he was spazzing, so maybe being aware of the issue was better, right? Dean hoped so, though he wasn't sure that he believed it completely.

He turned the key in the ignition again, feeling the Impala's purr under his hands, and then just stayed in the driveway of a house that wasn't his, searching in vain for a distraction for both of them. Even a topic change would be nice, though he refused to switch to the weather. Though maybe the weather itself could give him some kind of out. It was fucking hot, so he turned the air conditioner on full blast (Sam jumped, but in the surprised-then-interested way that Dean wrote off as "that startled me but it's fine now" and not "I'm fucking scared out of my mind"). And then Dean thought of a sure bet. 

"What do you say we get some ice cream, Sam?" he said, pulling out of the driveway. "We can cool down, get a little sugar in our veins, maybe flirt with some cute waitresses. It's even healthy for you, all that dairy."

Sam nodded. "A-anything you want, Dean."

Dean glanced at him, ignoring the chill the words gave him. "You've never had ice cream before either, have you?" 

"No."

"Yup, didn't think so. I was going to get you some in the park but...yeah. Well, delayed gratification is better than just leaving you hanging, right? And, seriously, dude, ice cream is the best."

"Second best," Sam said. "After pie."

Dean swung his head around, about to gape, and then remembered he was  _driving_ , so he snapped back in time to swerve around some idiot driving practically in the middle of the road, but he had needed to see how Sam meant that. Then he had to get his heart under control—the beats seemed to be coming far too irregularly because of that little, shy smile on Sam's mouth. Dammit if he wasn't being  _teased_.

"Exactly, Sam," he said. "Damn, you're smart."

Sam practically  _glowed_.

Following that promising turn-around in Sam's mood, they powered through a Dairy Queen drive-thru and finally got Sam ice cream. They ate it in the car in a mall parking lot where they could watch people and, most importantly, Sam wouldn't have to deal with  _anything_. If they couldn't be safe within the Impala's four walls, Dean didn't know that there was any place on earth that they could.

Sam ate his sundae with infinite care, like something very strange and far too wonderful would happen if he rushed through it. Watching him, Dean felt a little bad that he had warned him about brain freeze, because it really wasn't  _that_ much of an issue. But another part of him loved watching Sam eat the ice cream, scooping up small bites of vanilla and fudge and swallowing with a look of complete bliss on his face. 

It was great, yeah, and such a relief to have finally pulled something off right, to  _give_ Sam something good without crashing and wiping out the rest of the day. Dean almost couldn't believe it was possible to end on a _good_ note, found himself holding his breath at times as they headed west to explore the reservoirs and ranches west of Boulder city limits, bracing for the other shoe to fall...but it stayed okay. Better than okay. Sam was smiling at him, shyly, but miles more relaxed than he'd been even that morning. When they got back to the condo, Dean whipped together a quick meal of spaghetti, and they played cards for the next few hours, until bedtime.

Monday, Dean decided to take on a different challenge. He didn't ask Sam to leave the house—they had a leisurely breakfast, Dean nudged Sam toward the bookcase, and a minute later Sam was curled up on the end of the sofa with the Norton anthology propped on his legs.

Dean took it easy for a little while longer—wiped off the table again, then settled on the floor with his back to the sofa to flip through the TV Guide, just to see if  _anything_ looked like it might be safe for them, before tossing it back onto the coffee table and twisting around to look at Sam.

"Hey, Sam...do you think you'd be okay here if I went for a run around the block?"

Dean exhaled in relief when Sam didn't immediately panic, break down, cry, or have some kind of spontaneous heart attack. The only sign of his rising anxiety was the tension in his arms and the way he turned his head, looking but  _not_ looking into Dean's face. "A ru—whatever you want, Dean."

"Hey." Dean rested a hand on Sam's foot and squeezed gently. "Yeah, a run. You can ask questions, it's okay." 

Sam took a slow shaky breath and carefully put the book on the coffee table. "You'd l-leave?"

"Yeah. Not for long, though. Quick run, maybe just around the block a couple times to get out some energy."

"You'd c-c-come back?"

Dean leaned in and rested his head on the couch. "Always, Sam. Always. Will you be okay or should I give it a few more days?"

Sam nodded, though he still wasn't looking at him. "You'll come back. I'll be f-fine. Th-th-thank you for asking me."

"No problem, Sam. I want you to be okay."

Dean ran harder and faster than usual, and the whole time around the block he felt a tightness constricting his chest that had nothing to do with getting back into exercise. But when he came back, out of breath and covered in a fine sheen of sweat, Sam was still in the same place, and the look of happiness on his face when he saw Dean—Dean was glad that it had so quickly eclipsed the panic he saw the moment he stepped in—made the idea of leaving all the easier.

Dean drank a glass of water, chatting with Sam while relishing the feeling of having someone to come home to, and then left for another run.

He went for six laps in all, and by the last one, when he walked through the door and Sam's expression showed nothing but happiness, expectation, relief, the panic was gone. Between that and the endorphins, Dean felt pretty damn good, too.

~*~

Dean had forgotten—no, not really forgotten, but it had slipped to the back of his mind in the flood of paperwork, the fight with Dad, the nerve-wracking first few days after getting Sam out and realizing how badly over his head he was—how much Sam loved books and how fast he could read them, until Tuesday when he looked over to the couch where Sam was opening up another book, and realized that Sam had definitely read that book before. Dean remembered it because it was his high school U.S. history textbook and he'd accidentally stolen it. He and Dad had had to hit the road last minute and they had been two hundred miles away before he realized that his textbooks were still in the back seat. He'd sold the algebra book for five bucks to a smart little foreign kid at one of their crappy apartments, and the grammar book had taken a bullet in northern Minnesota, but the history book had somehow gotten lost in the Impala. He hadn't read it or even thought about it until it turned up in his cleaning and he realized that Sam might want it.

He'd seen Sam reading the book earlier that week, too, because it was one of the eight books on Dean's built-in bookshelf, and Sam had been slowly working his way through each one, his hands on the pages careful, hesitant and eager in a way that he knew Sam didn't want him to notice. But it still filled Dean with a cautious optimism each time he saw Sam calm and relaxed, reading.

He sat carefully next to Sam, trying to keep his eyes off the book, but it must not have worked because Sam's face shut down slightly and he slid the book off his lap and to the coffee table.

"Good book?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded. "It's pretty comprehensive, if a little simplistic. There's a lot of stuff they didn't...I hadn't known about before."

"Yeah, like what?"

"Just...a lot of the overview about the Civil War and...everything. There were some zombie issues after Gettysburg, I read about it in a journal, but I had no idea...there's a lot that's new, but I can fit other things into it, you know? I've never read  _history_ before." 

Dean snorted. "Yeah, well, you get way too much of it in school. But you've read that one before, right?"

Sam nodded again. "Yeah. I'm skimming this time."

"You think there's some things you missed?" Dean thought books were okay, but he'd rather listen to classic rock or watch TV. He could try, though. They had been able to talk about a book for hours when they were kids, but that was when it had  _mattered_ , when he had wanted to talk to Sam so badly that he would have done anything to give them something to share. Now, like with so many things, he felt lost. 

Sam shook his head firmly. "I have a pretty good grasp of the information." He hesitated, glanced up, and then down again. His hands were limp, palms up in his lap. "I don't know how useful the information is for hunting." His eyes flickered to the book. "I mean, it could be useful if there are ghosts left over from the old battles, or if some of the older massacres were caused by a vampire nest or something like that, but it's hard to pull modern-day connections without other, more hunting-oriented resources." He looked at Dean's confused face and completely misinterpreted it. Panic flickered through his eyes. "I mean, I know you know better, I can do a-anything you need to, I just—" 

Dean put his hand over Sam's. "Sam, I didn't ask you how it was for research or anything. I asked to find out if you...liked it. I mean, not for research, but just...damn, Sam, how many times have you read this one?"

Sam's hand tightened in his and then loosened almost immediately. Dean thought it had been an automatic reaction, but his fingers squeezed Sam's in response, anyway. He liked touching Sam. And he still hated those little fearful reactions.

"Just twice," Sam whispered.

"Just!" Dean started back, and Sam cringed. Dean swore softly under his breath. He pointed at the shelf, at  _X-Men: Days of Future Past_. "What about that one?"

"Three."

Dean pointed at  _Huckleberry Finn_. "And that one?"

"Five times." 

" _What?_ " Dean couldn't keep his voice down. Why couldn't Sam have mentioned this? Dean knew he should have known better, and that knowledge just made him angry. How could he get Sam what he wanted, everything he needed, if Sam wouldn't tell him what that was? 

He only felt worse when Sam pulled away from him into the couch and tucked his legs up a little. "I l-l-liked it," he forced out. "I'm s-s-s—"

Dean put up a hand. "No, Sam. You don't have to apologize. My fault. Come on." He stood and offered Sam his hand.

Sam still cringed at any sudden movement or raised voice. If Dean sat down too suddenly at a goddamned table. But when Dean offered his hand, Sam took it as quickly and calmly as another person would help himself to a second portion of mashed potatoes. Dean didn't know if that was yet another thing broken inside Sam, or if it meant what he wished it meant, that Sam trusted him, that this overwhelming fear—overwhelming for Dean, Sam seemed to accept his own terror as the appropriate response—would fade away.

"We're going to go for a walk," Dean said. "There's a library nearby. We're going to get you a library card."

~

Sam followed Dean cautiously down the street, his heart beating a little too hard. If this had been camp, this would have been a trick, some guard promising him something and then taking it away when it would hurt the most. This would have been the Director tying him down and asking exactly what he liked so that it could be taken away and he would never see it again. But...he didn't think that was what was going to happen.

Of course he didn't really think that he could just walk into a building and take out books without any questions. Books were...wonderful, they opened up the world and he was...well, even though the reals around him didn't know, he knew, and he doubted he would ever be able to just walk out a door with a book cradled in his hands. He had only been allowed to research with books in camp because everyone thought that reading was an integral part of what Dean and John Winchester wanted him to know.

A lot of guards had made jokes about the usefulness of the Kama Sutra.

 _"Only fucking reason to teach a monster to read: give it ideas that might be useful."_

"Not even then! I've heard it's all pictures. Like an instruction manual. Heh, not that I need the freaks to be able to figure it out for themselves."

But Sam felt confident enough that Dean didn't mean that. He seemed to honestly not care what Sam read, and he never took a book away from him, never needed it to be about hunting, about finding other monsters or teaching Sam what he should do to deserve to stay. Honestly, Sam would have been grateful for a book that would tell him what Dean wanted. He had hope that Dean wasn't going to bring him back to FREACS any time soon, but it felt like the calculations in his life never added up any more: no matter how many times he tried or how carefully he did the math, the answer never made sense.

But for now, Sam pushed all his worries down and away from what he had to do. The sun was bright in the sky, trees rustled in the breeze, his long-sleeved shirt was just the perfect weight to keep him not too hot and not too cold—being the right temperature was a pleasure in and of itself, something that had happened rarely at camp, and he hadn't dared enjoy too long. And he was walking with Dean, who didn't look angry, didn't look depressed, just determined. Sam kept a foot or so behind him, partially because that was where he belonged—unless, of course Dean wanted him to take a risk first or to be beneath him—but also because when Dean was distracted, when there weren't that many people around, Sam felt safer just looking. Without Dean's eyes on him, without the threat of a guard or a real who would know that he was a monster, Sam could let himself watch Dean's neck, the way his shoulders moved as he walked.

He knew that someday Dean would catch him, and Sam wasn't sure how he would respond. Anyone else would hit him, even if they enjoyed the attention, even if they liked knowing that Sam couldn't stop watching them. Crusher had been like that, though no one had watched Crusher for the reasons Sam watched Dean. Crusher had been a threat, a nasty presence that monsters could neither ignore nor watch too closely. Both choices only ended in blood.

Sam couldn't even say why he watched Dean. Dean was like kissing. Sam never thought that he would deserve to have something so wonderful and sweet in his life. No, not deserve. He didn't deserve Dean. Dean was a gift that he could never have earned—though, God, he would try, if only Dean would say the word, he would try—or maybe a reward for some price he hadn't paid yet. He didn't know what he could give in return for having Dean in his life. Sam knew his own life wasn't worth nearly that much.

Preoccupied with these thoughts, it took Sam by surprise when they reached the library. It was a tall building, but very different from Administration: part brick, part glass rising in a circular slanted prism, and absolutely no bars, peepholes or checkpoints in sight. 

Dean pushed through the big glass door first, but held it open on the other side for Sam. He had used to hold doors open and have Sam pass through them first. Sam still didn't know why, but Dean had stopped after a couple times. 

Sam brushed Dean's shoulder as he passed through the door—he allowed himself these small pleasures because Dean didn't seem to notice them, and if Dean didn't notice he couldn't mind them, couldn't tell Sam to stop touching. Sam didn't reach out much, couldn't risk touching something so wonderful, knowing it could be taken away, but sometimes he couldn't stop himself.

Distracted by the feel of Dean's jacket, smiling involuntarily, Sam kept his eyes on his feet for a long second. When he did look up, he stopped stock-still and stared. He felt Dean's hands slide over his shoulders—he'd almost run into Sam because the stop had been so abrupt, Sam felt a flash of guilt for that—but even that pleasant contact and residual worry were swamped by the sight of  _books_.

There were hundreds of them. No, not hundreds. Thousands. Maybe more. He could see hundreds on each shelf, different titles, sizes and shapes. He saw videotapes, CD and DVDs, hardcover books with bright, laminated dust jackets, worn paperbacks, so many and such a variety that he had to suck in his breath and close his eyes to get a sudden wave of dizziness under control.

When he opened his eyes, Dean was grinning at him, mischief and delight sparkling in his eyes. Sam couldn't stop himself—and didn't try—from smiling back. He hadn't seen that look in Dean's eyes for a long time, and it uplifted him even more than the sight of all those thousands of books had.

Sam had read everything in the apartment at least twice, and he hadn't minded because they were Dean's books and Dean had told him that he could read them. But it had never occurred to him they could search elsewhere for books, or indeed that there were so many books in the world. The library that monsters worked in at camp had had been maybe half the size of what he could see from the doorway, and most of the texts had been old, thick copies of grimoires and bestiaries in every language under the sun. Sam could tell, even from his limited experience with reals' books, that no title that he could read from where he stood had anything to do with the supernatural.

And Dean wanted him to read these when he wanted. Well, maybe not when he wanted, but Dean would not have brought him to this place, would not share that look of delight—the same look he had had the first time he watched Sam eat pie—if he was going to turn them around and cut Sam off from this beautiful reservoir of knowledge.

"Like it?" Dean asked, still grinning.

Sam nodded quickly. He couldn't force out the words, knew that if he tried he would stutter and freeze up because this was _such a wonderful place_ , but he loved it. He loved Dean even more for bringing him here, just when he had honestly thought he couldn't feel more grateful, more indebted, more dazzled by Dean.

"I thought you would." Dean still looked as smug as he had when telling Sam how he and his father had taken down their latest wendigo. "Come on, let's find the librarian and get you a card."

The line was short. Apparently, Tuesday afternoon wasn't a crowded time in the library. Sam made a note of that. If Dean would actually let him come to this paradise by himself, he wanted to come when there was no one else there, when he could disappear amid the stacks of books and not be in anyone's way, not be found. Though he doubted that he would ever come here without Dean, and he didn't think that Dean would want to hand-hold him all the time. Why should he waste his time helping Sam with something as unimportant (unimportant simply because it was important to Sam, and nothing he wanted could actually be worth anything, except for Dean himself) as a library?

 _But he brought you today, didn't he?_  a small voice whispered.  _He saw that you wanted this, and he didn't take it away. He's bringing you to a library and says he's going to get you a_ card  _so you can take books away. He might come back with you. He might actually want you to have this._

Hard to believe. Stupid to put his hopes on that. But the closer they got to the desk, with Dean's hand resting gently on his arm, the more he believed it.

When they got to the counter, Dean pushed him forward gently. Sam felt a spike of panic when he thought that Dean was leaving, was going to make him talk to a real without Dean there to claim him when he fucked it up and everyone found out he was a monster, but Dean didn't leave, didn't even move away, just stayed beside him with one hand on his shoulder.

The librarian smiled reassuringly. Sam took a deep breath and forced himself to look at her, though not in the eyes—he couldn't do that, so dangerous, there might be something in his face that she would see that proved he was a monster—and waited for a clue of what to do next.

"What can I do for you?" she asked.

Sam was pretty sure she knew there was something wrong with him, but there was no hatred, loathing or threat in her eyes, so he didn't think she had figured out he was a monster. He could deal with this. Dean expected him to deal with this.

"Ummm," he started, and then glanced back.

Dean was glowing at him. Sam was glad that he had tried looking directly at the woman's face before Dean told him to. Every time Dean smiled, Sam felt another layer of tension fade away.

"Sam wants a library card," Dean said. "We live down Bluff Road. Right, Sam?"

Sam nodded, and then turned to the librarian. "Yes," he said. "I...I am here for a library card. Please."

She hadn't stopped smiling. So far so good. "That's no problem, library cards are what we're here for. Here, fill out this form and bring it back when you're done, and I'll get you your card right away."

Sam took the stiff piece of paper gratefully and turned away. He almost handed it to Dean, but then, glancing down at it, realized he could do it himself. He knew the address and the phone number, he could fill this in.

He took a little pen from an alcove with two computers labeled CATALOGUE SEARCH, and slowly, in his best handwriting, filled the form in. He hesitated over the name line, and then carefully wrote  _Sam_. That was the name that Dean always used, and it would be a dead giveaway to write 88UI6703.

Once finished, he brought it up to the counter. He was careful not to let the librarian touch him when she took the form—didn't want her to be touching a monster, even unknowingly.

"Sam," she said. He managed not to flinch when she said his name. "Do you have a last name, hun?"

Sam froze. He opened his mouth, and then closed it again, fear hitting him like a fist to the diaphragm. He had hoped, he had really thought that this was going to work, that he was going to have a  _card_ that said he could check out books, that he would just be able to hand in the little piece of paper with the information on it and everything would make sense because that's the way it worked in the real world. That's how it would work if he hadn't been born a monster. He should have known that he wouldn't be able to get away with it.

"I thought...N-n-no...s-sorry." He tried to reach over to take the form back. Maybe if she didn't have evidence of him, she would forget this and wouldn't remember the stupid monster that thought he could act like a real for a day. 

Then Dean put his hand back on Sam's shoulder. "It's Sam Winchester," he told the librarian. "Like the rifle."

The woman's smile returned full force. "All right," she said, made a quick note on the sheet, and began typing on the computer.

Sam felt the world sliding sideways. Dean had said...Dean couldn't possibly mean. He had to blink, rapidly, because suddenly his eyes were full of little bits of sparkles and he felt lightheaded. Dean couldn't possibly mean that. Dean wouldn't have...

But Dean was still speaking, this time in a low voice to him.

"I hope you don't mind, you didn't have a last name in your file," he said, and if Sam hadn't known better, he would have almost thought that Dean was nervous.

Sam just stared at him, full in the face. "You mean that's really my name? L-Legally?" He couldn't hide how much this meant to him, but he didn't know how that much emotion was going to show on his face.

"We can change it if you want to." Dean did look worried now. "I mean, it would take a shit-ton more paperwork, it was hard enough convincing them," he glanced at the librarian, "well, it was a hassle, but your last name can be whatever you want it to be. I mean, I know that Winchester can be..."

Sam couldn't stop the smile, but he could duck his head. Then he remembered that Dean liked to see him smile. That he looked the happiest when Sam could force himself to look him in the eye. "No, that's—that's good. Winchester is...perfect."  _Because it's your name_. He would be able to keep Dean's name forever. Even if they took it away from him some day on paper, he would know that for a time he had been Sam  _Winchester_.

~

For Dean, bringing Sam to the library had turned into a treat all by itself. Much as he hated Sam's double-twitch every time he saw something he loved—twitching once to hide whatever reaction he had had, twitching twice because he hoped that Dean hadn't noticed the first one—he loved to watch Sam awed and wide-eyed. It let Dean see the world—especially the parts he never would have thought about, like libraries—in a new light.

The only stomach-dropping stop was the second after he told the librarian that Sam's last name was Winchester because...well, he hadn't exactly shared that with Sam yet.

But the sweet smile on Sam's face went a long way to convince him that giving Sam the Winchester surname was one of the best things that Dean could have done. That Sam really was happy to be carrying his name. 

"Winchester is...perfect," Sam said, and for one minute, Dean was completely happy, blissed out with unaccustomed success.

They checked out a few good-sized books, including a biography of Mark Twain, and walked slowly home. Dean couldn't stop smiling, and every time he looked at Sam clutching the books close to his chest or saw him reach into his pocket to feel the brand-new library card, he thought he was going to crack from the rush of relief and happiness. 

When the librarian had handed over the card, with an even brighter smile, there had been a space on the back for the cardholder's signature. For the first time, Sam had written his name, Dean's last name, in careful letters that wobbled a bit because he was so excited and overwhelmed. 

For both of them, it couldn't get much better than this.

~*~

Dean had filled out a library card himself and browsed the movie section while Sam pored over the books, and ended picking up a couple things he felt reasonably confident would not shatter Sam. After dinner, he pushed in the VHS tape, and they settled down in comfy clothes onto the couch. 

The movie was ass-boring, but infinitely better than anything else they'd tried so far, since Sam wasn't jerking like he'd been slapped in the face by the humor. No, in fact, Dean wasn't about to complain about anything, because Sam was currently leaning against his chest, so relaxed he had dozed off. As hesitant as Sam was to initiate contact, if Dean stretched his arm across the back of the sofa, Sam would immediately sit right beside him. And once there, he practically melted into Dean's arms, eagerly following Dean's gentle tugs until they had shifted toward one end of the sofa, Dean braced against the armrest, one leg on the floor, the other knee resting against the back of the sofa, with Sam tucked just under his collarbone, both his legs folded up on the seat. Dean crossed his left arm over Sam's waist, fingers curled around his side. His right hand pushed slowly through Sam's hair, occasionally pausing with his fingers tangled in the strands. 

With excruciating slowness, about halfway through the movie, Sam had lifted his hand to touch—light as a feather—his knuckles to Dean's chest. All Dean had wanted was to take Sam's hand and press it flat, show him that it was  _okay_ —more than okay, he wanted Sam to touch him as much as he liked and more—but everything had to be Sam's initiative. The last thing Dean wanted was to push Sam past what he was ready for, and only Sam knew where that line was. So he shut his eyes, enjoying the feel of his hand tangling in Sam's hair, the light touch on his chest, and being content for now with that delicate brush of contact. At least Sam had done that much on his own. 

He could feel Sam's chest expanding and sinking in an even rhythm, and that alone confirmed he had fallen asleep. This was definitely the most relaxed Sam had been with him yet. Dean let his head fall back, shutting out the TV's light. He would have a crick in his neck the next morning, and probably cramps in his leg, but every ache and pain would be worth it. Whatever his fantasies had been months ago, when being with Sam was just a paperwork dream, they had been scrambled all to hell by the actuality. Since the reality check, he'd never let himself think he'd earn a moment like this one, that Sam could possibly trust him this much. 

The peace broke when Sam came awake with a hard full-body twitch and a sharp inhale. Dean didn't think, just pulled him closer and slid his right hand down Sam's face until he could cup his chin. "Shh, shh, it's okay, Sam, it's just me. Just me and you." He felt Sam's heartbeat slow quickly from the adrenaline burst, even while his body remained tense.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, sleep slurring his speech. "I'm trying to pay attention—"

Dean had to laugh, because it was better than his actual emotions about what Sam still thought Dean expected from him every moment of the day. "Dude, this movie was made to put you to sleep. There's nothing going on to pay attention to." He stroked his thumb absently down Sam's cheek, relieved at how he felt Sam settling down again. Damn, he hated to end this, but—"You look wiped. Want to go to bed?"

Unexpectedly, Sam opened his hand on Dean's chest, fingers grasping at his thin undershirt. "No, I...don't want to leave." The words were almost inaudible, and his fingers clenched in the fabric.

Dean caught his breath, unable at first to believe those words were coming out of Sam's mouth. He had to be certain, couldn't just twist things around in his head to what he really, really wanted. He kept his voice as soft as he could. "Do you want to stay with me, Sam?"

For a long moment, Sam didn't answer. Dean thought he might have fallen back asleep, but then: "Mmm." The noise wasn't exactly an answer, but there was something pained and needy in it, something that Sam couldn't or wouldn't verbalize. Dean took that for a cautious, preliminary yes, drew Sam a little tighter to him, and pushed a little harder.

"Do you want...to come sleep in my bed? With me? Just sleep, no funny stuff. Totally PG, I promise."

Sam was silent for a while longer, then shifted slightly, turning his head up. Dean stilled his hands, hardly aware he was holding his breath, hoping desperately he hadn't ruined everything. He was about to backtrack— _I'm an idiot, you don't have to, how about them Broncos, Sammy?_ —when Sam spoke, clearly.

"Yes. Yes, I do."

Dean could have done a fist-pump of victory right there, but he chose instead to bend his head to press his lips to Sam's temple. Then, keeping his arm around Sam's waist, he leaned to snag the remote and shut off the TV. "C'mon, Sam. Let's go." Afraid this surreal moment would dissolve if he lost contact, Dean kept his hand on Sam's waist as they stood up. He slipped his other hand over Sam's shoulder, and Sam stayed relaxed, hugging close as they moved to Dean's room.

Dean refused to let this get uncomfortable or tense, so he kept Sam right by him as he pulled down the blankets and sheets, crawled in without changing into the rather less he usually wore to bed, and then tugged him in after. Sam followed readily, stretching out next to him on his stomach, head turned toward Dean. Now Dean stopped, unsure how much contact would be okay and what would be _creepy handsy stalker_ , so he kept his hands folded over his stomach, eyes ostensibly fixed on the ceiling but aware of Sam's every move.

Then Sam did something peculiar. He extended one hand halfway across the space between them, toward Dean's bicep, before suddenly pulling back, fingers curling in, like a child admonished not to touch. 

It was too fucking much. Dean couldn't stand it. "Sam—" He took Sam's hand himself, drawing it across to press flat against his own chest. Sam gasped, and a shudder ran through his body, but he didn't try to pull away. "It's okay, Sammy. This is okay, I want you to—c'mere." And Sam did.

They ended up exactly how Dean had pictured once upon a time, legs tangled together, Sam breathing against his collarbone, Dean's nose nestled in his hair. Sam had even, somehow, reached around to press both hands against Dean's back,  _holding_ him too, and if it weren't for Sam's very real warmth and weight, Dean would have thought this were one elaborate, pathetic dream. But, no, he really had this—Sam here, in his arms and bed, safe and sleeping, proof that Dean had succeeded at one big thing in his life. He didn't have to remind himself that Sam was in the other room, or resist the temptation to check because he couldn't quite believe that Sam wasn't still trapped in that hellhole. No, Sam had said—actually _told him_ —he wanted to be here with him, and he'd still be right here in the morning when Dean woke up, when he'd be able to brush Sam's hair back and run his thumb over his eyelids and the corner of his lips. And Dean knew, with a certainty that was maybe stupid but certainty all the same, that Sam wouldn't flinch when he opened his eyes. He'd be okay. He'd know he was still safe, with Dean.

Dean had spent a lot of nights lying alone awake, or sleeping next to someone whose name he didn't remember in the morning—and hadn't been expected to—but in that moment he knew that  _this_ , even if it could never go any farther, was what he'd been waiting for.

~*~

Dean was pulled out of sleep by a distant choking cough that grew louder the closer he came to full awareness. But he didn't have the foggiest clue what was happening until he opened his eyes and saw Sam hunched over, knees pulled up, clutching his throat, struggling to breathe.

That was the end of Dean's early morning daze.

He shot up in panic, scrabbling at Sam's hand to try to figure out what the fuck was hurting him. For a few red-raging seconds, he thought some kind of spirit had gotten through the wards and he was going to kill that motherfucking sonofabitch a second fucking time and make it  _hurt_. But when some of those snarled threats must have worked their way out of Dean's panicked mind to his mouth, Sam shook his head, eyes closed, working to inhale, even as he choked, each breath an awful rasp.

Dean wasn't sure if he was glad that it wasn't something he could kill. Because, yeah, maybe it was reassuring that Sam knew what this was, seemed to have a handle on it, but that also meant there was not a damn fucking thing Dean could do while Sam was choking on something Dean couldn't see or understand. Maybe this was the way civilians felt, able to do nothing in the face of the unknown but hold on to their loved one's knee and and plead incoherently for it to be all right. "Breathe, Sam, please, just breathe. Don't do this to me. I need you to breathe, c'mon, you can, it'll be okay."

After what seemed like hours—entirely too damn long,  _fuck_ —Sam gradually relaxed, managing short but even breaths, and then deeper ones, sagging against the headboard in exhaustion.

"God," Dean breathed, and pulled Sam forward, folding him against his chest and not caring for once about how he'd react. "Holy shit. Way to scare a guy shitless in the morning. Christ."

"So—" Sam gasped against his chest, voice raw. "Sor—"

"Shhhhh." Dean closed his eyes, unconsciously rocking Sam back and forth. He couldn't hear it, not now. He focused instead on how Sam relaxed against him, no tension or anxiety in his muscles. Sam wasn't confused about what had happened, didn't seem to be fucking scared out of his mind like Dean. Which meant that this wasn't the unknown for him. Fuck, fuck,  _fuck_. After a minute, he forced out the important question. "Does that happen often?"

Sam shook his head, nose brushing Dean's chest. "Only a c-couple times since I came here."

Dean swallowed, not wanting to think about Sam choking alone in his room. Fuck, what if he'd passed out or something? "What about...back there?"

"No. It never happened...before."

"Hm." Dean readjusted his grip, shifting his legs so they could sit more comfortably, and tilted Sam's head back to look him in the face. "Any idea what sets it off? Is there anything that—helps?"

Sam shook his head, gaze sliding down as he rested his head against Dean's shoulder. 

"Well, we'll see if we can figure something out." Dean ran his hands over Sam's head and back again, feeling panic's echo in his pulse. He couldn't get over how little he fucking knew about taking care of Sam. How Sam could be so close—lying right beside him in a salt-lined room—and those bastards hundreds of miles away could still do their best to choke the life out of him.  _So close, so close_. Sam had one hand lightly clutching Dean's T-shirt, forearm bare, and the light lines of scratches—mostly healed, but still visible—clenched Dean's chest unexpectedly. "Dammit," he whispered, and raised Sam's head once more, to the right angle for kissing.

He had meant to keep it brief—one hard kiss, enough to show Sam what he meant to Dean in all the ways Dean could never convey with words—but Sam opened up at once, sinking into his arms and parting his lips eagerly, like he  _wanted_ more. And Dean had never had enough self-control not to push deeper into Sam's mouth like this was his last breath. It was sweet as every time before, if not better, as Sam's arms slipped, with only the slightest hesitation, over Dean's shoulders. Dean couldn't keep from pulling Sam tight to his body as he kissed him, desperate to show him how much Dean wanted him, couldn't get enough—

Sam made a warm, surprised but pleased sound, and Dean broke off with a shuddering breath, only then realizing he was more than halfway on top of Sam, pressing his warm body into the bed.

"Fuck. Shit. Dammit. Sorry," Dean said, scrambling backward ( _hands_ off,  _Winchester_ ). "No no no, this is definitely not PG."

Propped on his elbows, Sam looked startled, eyes wide, kiss-swollen lips still parted. Dean pulled his eyes away with a supreme effort and became far too aware of the pressure of his cock against his far-too-thin boxers. _Oh, fucking hell_. He made himself look at Sam again, because, horny pervert or no, he had to handle this right or it could destroy Sam in all new ways.

Keeping direct eye contact and willing Sam not to look away, he leaned forward and grabbed Sam's hand. "Trust me, Sam, I really like kissing you, but anywhere but here for now, okay? Here is...not a good idea. Even if—that's not what I want do yet, it's not—not PG."

Sam still looked worried and confused, but he nodded, and Dean forced a smile. "Good. Okay. We should totally get dressed and shower and shit and I'll meet you out there in...fifteen. We're going somewhere awesome for breakfast."

~*~

Sam focused doggedly on the task at hand, on Dean's directions as he showered, dressed, and then ended up waiting in the living room. He could hear Dean's shower running. Sam hesitated, then took a seat on the end of the sofa, folding his legs under him.

So much had happened in the last twelve hours, his heart still beat a little too fast, a little less than smooth. He had never, ever allowed himself to think for a second that Dean would want him—a dirty freak, after all, there was no way Dean could have forgotten—in his bed. Not to hurt or  _anything_ , just to hold and sleep and listen to each other breathe. The idea that he could ever have something as wonderful and perfect as that—it still made his hands shake when he thought about it, but he pressed them tight between his knees. He didn't want Dean to see and think there was anything wrong, when there  _wasn't_ , there couldn't be.

Dean hadn't even been disgusted when Sam woke him with his hacking—Sam couldn't control it, couldn't help that edge-of-waking sensation that he was hanging by the collar he no longer wore, choking, dangling, scrabbling to support himself on toes that didn't quite touch the floor until he couldn't breathe, couldn't scream, couldn't think. But instead of being frightened or angry, Dean had been—there was no other way to describe it— _worried_ about Sam. And Sam had thought there could be nothing more to paradise—until Dean kissed him. 

It still made him dizzy, heat pooling in his stomach as he recalled it—Dean's tongue in his mouth, his arms tightening and lowering him down—and yes, there had been an awful instant when Dean jerked away that Sam thought he'd done something wrong or that Dean had remembered what he  _was_. But Dean looked him in the eye when he said he did like it, it just...wasn't the right place. 

Sam didn't completely understand, and that should have worried him more—terrible things happened when you didn't understand all the rules or how they worked—but it was hard to panic, this morning. Hard to worry when Dean had brought him into his own bed for the whole night, when he had felt Dean's touch for far, far longer than he could have ever expected.

When Dean emerged from the hall, damp hair dark, Sam tried not to jump or straighten or do anything but smile and look Dean in the face. He had learned that much right, at least, because Dean's whole face broke into an answering smile, bright and easy like Sam hadn't seen since the first day Dean took him away from camp. Dean came over to Sam, sat down on the sofa arm, and laid a hand on Sam's cheek, thumb under his jaw, as he kissed Sam again. This one was soft and easy, slow enough to savor, before Dean broke away. He was still smiling, though, and took Sam's hand as he stood up. "C'mon, Sammy."

They didn't drive far, just to a donut shop a few blocks away that Dean had pointed out on Sunday. He had said that bagels were pretty good—"Especially with that chick's cream cheese. I don't know what they put in it, but I think I love that stuff, Sam"—but they couldn't come close to sugar-glazed donuts.

It was getting easier to trust Dean when they went out, Sam thought as he stepped out of the Impala. Dean wouldn't bring him somewhere people might recognize him for what he was, and he wasn't going to force Sam into something he couldn't manage yet.

Sam still stuck close to Dean's side as they went through the door, and Dean rested his hands on Sam's shoulders while they stood in the back of the shop. Focusing on breathing slow and even, Sam made himself look around instead of just staring at the floor. Some reals stood in line before the counter, behind which were shelves of what Sam supposed were donuts—they looked like delicate bagels with different colored toppings and textures. Other reals sat at small tables, eating the same thing with their fingers and drinking from white styrofoam cups.

After they'd waited in line for a minute or so, the young woman behind the counter smiled brightly at them, eyes flickering past Sam to Dean. "What can I get for you?"

"We'll take a dozen mixed." As she rang it up, a young man in the same red employee shirt turned to start filling a box, and Dean dropped his mouth to Sam's ear. "Do you want coffee or milk?"

Sam shivered, feeling Dean's breath over his ear and neck, very aware of how close Dean was behind him, hands still on his shoulders. "Milk's fine," he whispered, and Dean squeezed his shoulders.

Dean got a coffee for himself, and they took their drinks and the donuts to an empty corner table with a window. Sam tried not to think about all the eyes that might see him through that window, instead focusing on the box Dean had just opened. Dean pulled one out of the middle that was plain yellow with a crumbly glaze of white sugar that stuck to his fingers. Dean tore it in half and offered Sam the bigger section. It was still warm, and softer than a bagel.

When Sam bit into it, he expected something bagel-like, but the flavors hit him from the tip of his tongue to the back of his throat, the rush of sugar, the sweet burst of a flavor that he could never have imagined, and even while it was burning through, his senses couldn't quite believe that anything so good could really be real. He had to close his eyes while the flavor—oh so good—ran from his mouth to his stomach and back again. When he came back to himself and looked up, blinking dazedly, he saw Dean grinning even wider, like he was barely containing laughter—but never at Sam. 

"Pretty good, huh?" Dean asked, licking his fingers clean of the sugar.

Sam waved the last piece of donut, wishing he had words that could remotely describe the sensations from just that bite.

Dean's eyes crinkled, and he suddenly leaned toward Sam, bracing his forearms on the table. Sam jumped, but only a little, and Dean was murmuring, "You've got some sugar—" His lips touched the corner of Sam's mouth, followed by a warm wet swipe of tongue.

Sam threw himself backward, out of Dean's reach, sliding his chair back and almost tipping it over, so startled the donut slipped from his fingers. Dean looked taken aback, but it was nothing like the disbelief coursing through Sam.  _How could he_ —

"Sam," Dean said, sitting back slowly, as though afraid to move too fast. "What did I...?"

"You can't," Sam said, and shook his head. His heart was pounding too fast, and he just couldn't believe that _Dean_ , who was so smart, would do something so reckless. "You shouldn't," he tried again. "Not  _here_." Dean looked bewildered, and Sam tipped his head, slightly, at the reals in the store. He couldn't bear to check if any of them were staring—even if most of them didn't know now, if just one of them was a hunter or figured it out, and saw Dean  _kissing_ a freak...the risk was far, far too great for Dean.

Dean glanced around furtively, then comprehension slowly dawned, followed by the tired sadness Sam had seen too much over the last week, the expression that twisted up his insides because  _he_ had done that to Dean.

"Sam," Dean said, and reached across to take his hand, even though Sam flinched, harder than before. But he didn't pull away from Dean, even though it still wasn't smart—Sam had been too wrapped up in his own selfish fear to realize it before, but Dean should  _never_ be seen in public holding a freak's hand.

"Hey," Dean said, and Sam forced his eyes up. Dean hadn't made it an order, hadn't told him that was what that tone in his voice meant, but Sam had learned anyway. Dean looked weary, and so serious. "Kisses are okay in donut shops. Anywhere, as long as it's just kissing."

Sam realized he was talking about earlier, in Dean's bed, and Sam yet again felt equal parts amazement at how wonderful Dean was and guilt that he hadn't even been thinking about whatever had gone wrong that morning when he pulled away. He just didn't want to be the thing that ruined Dean's chances, reputation and safety, which at least for the moment Sam was sharing. 

He nodded, not trusting his voice to articulate a single thought that he desperately wanted Dean to understand. He had to trust Dean, even in something as reckless and dangerous as this. Dean had said people couldn't tell what he was from looking at him.

Dean smiled, still sad around the edges of his eyes, and leaned over, linking their hands. "Anything PG, Sam. And this," he patted the tiny table between them, "is definitely still PG." He leaned over and kissed him again. Light, just a press of their lips together, but still so damn good that for a second Sam didn't even care who was watching them or what they thought, lost in the sensation of Dean's hand and lips and how he was still  _there_ for Sam, after all this.

When they broke away, Dean looked him in the eye again. "I would kiss you anywhere, Sam."

For the rest of breakfast, Sam pondered the different sweetness between the donuts and Dean's kisses, though there wasn't a doubt which one he knew he preferred.

But the best part, he decided, licking bright pink sprinkles off his thumb, was that for the moment, at least, he didn't have to give up either one. He had both.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the first time, I'm posting the chapter here instead of LJ first, due to LJ's enormous issues posting large content right now. If you have an LJ account, please comment on the entry from which you were linked - or here, that's fine too. We just like to keep our comments grouped together.

They spent the rest of the day at home, but it was better, somehow, more complete than the last few days they had stayed indoors. Maybe it was because, for the first time since Dean had realized just how badly those bastards had messed up Sam, he felt confident about some things. He could tease Sam (carefully) and knew that he would get a small smile if he was obvious enough about it. He could leave the house for a run—damn, it felt good to be moving again—and Sam wouldn't spontaneously combust in the time it took him even to circle the block three or four times at an easy jog. And Sam liked donuts.

Dean was pretty sure that Sam liked his kisses, too, which made him feel better—better than what, he couldn't have said, but just  _ better_—every time he thought about it. Yeah, Sam had looked really discouragingly startled and panicked when Dean had tried to kiss the sugar off his mouth in the shop (hey, two kinds of sugar were always better than one), but Dean was pretty sure now that that was another case of Sam's head being fucked up from camp, or he was worried about what the customers would say about two guys kissing, or it could have just been some confusion about how Dean hadn't wanted to kiss him in bed. Sam had seemed to accept Dean's explanation, at least, and had been smiling again by the time they walked out of the shop.

That evening they toasted sandwiches in the frying pan—Sam putting the bread, meat, and cheese together and buttering the sides, Dean cooking the crap out of them—and talked about Sam's book. Sam's features and body language were lit with a lively interest that made Dean work to fight down an even bigger smile.

"He actually made that name up! Did you know that, Dean? His real name was Samuel Clemens."

Dean grinned. "Seems like everyone named Sam is pretty cool."

Sam blushed. "B-but he used Mark Twain for his stories. And he did so many things, Dean!"

Dean kissed him on the cheek, throwing an arm over Sam's shoulder. "Like what?"

By eleven Sam was drooping, yawning and dropping his head to Dean's shoulder, and Dean couldn't believe they had had such a good day. Such a good series of days. Only one thing could possibly make this day better.

Dean stood up. "Well, I'm beat." He tried not to glance back down too quickly and obviously. Things were looking up, but he didn't want to take anything for granted. He felt damn lucky nothing had gone to hell last night. This delicate relationship they were building still felt balanced on a needlepoint. "Do you...um..." He realized he was swinging his hand nervously and turned it into a vague gesture, waving between their rooms. "Wherever you want to..."

Sam had been watching him, face turned up, one hand resting on the thick library book on the couch, but he suddenly jumped to his feet, pressing close to Dean's side, hand brushing Dean's palm,  almost like he'd been going to take it. "Yeah," he said, ducking his head shyly. "I...I'd like...to be with...you."

And that was it. Best day ever, hands down, no questions asked, no need to recount the ballots. And if Sam just  _ saying  _ that didn't bring on a fucking high, Dean had never felt one. He wrapped his arm around Sam's shoulders again, squeezing him in a hug—not a desperate  _ please stop crying _ hug this time, but an  _ I damn well want to be as close to you as possible _ hug—as he pressed a kiss to Sam's cheek, then moved them toward his room before he could get any more carried away by the feel of Sam in his arms.

It was hard, damn hard. If he even  _ thought  _ too much about what he was doing—leading Sam to his bed, how Sam was going willingly, practically  _ eager_, soft and warm against his chest—he would have a hell of a time hiding what was  _ also  _ on his mind, and Sam would be completely justified in not trusting him.

Dean intended to keep his hands to himself—well, firmly above the waist—even if he ached all night long.  _ Easy, Winchester_. He didn't have the best record for showing restraint in the face of temptation, but he was not going to fuck this up. Just having Sam next to him was the best thing ever.

~*~

Thursday night, after the longest run yet—Dean had been gone for nearly an hour this time and came home dripping with sweat and a little sunburned besides (Sam had still looked happy to see him)—Dean came out of his bedroom after his shower still toweling his hair dry, a pair of shorts low on his hips. It had occurred to him in the middle of his shower that he wasn't sure what kind of meat products they still had around the house—protein was important, for someone who hadn't been eating enough, good for muscles and some shit like that—and he wanted to check it  now , maybe get something out of the freezer so they could be ambitious for dinner.

But what occurred to him the second he stepped into the kitchen was that maybe he could, at the same time he was checking their food supply, get some confirmation about whether or not what he was feeling for Sam was reciprocated, whether he was reading all the signs wrong or right.

Because here he was, shirtless, and it might have been a giant jackass sort of fact to acknowledge, but it was a principal of the universe: vampires sucked blood, hunters carried guns, and Dean, shirtless, could knock fully grown women and men off their feet if there was even a shadow of an attraction between them.

Dean was pretty sure that Sam  _ liked  _ him all right. They were friends. And he was pretty sure that if Sam had been one of those pretty boys that he had picked up in bars, or, fuck, even someone who had had a normal life, he would have been offered a drink by this point at least—yeah, they were sleeping together, and Sam liked kisses as much as anyone, but that might not mean anything more. Sharing a bed was wonderful, but it was just literally sleeping and fuck, Dean didn't understand all this at all, he was just trying to thrash his way around to an answer he could live with.

Dean hadn't really planned it. But now that he was just there, shirtless, exploring the kitchen, it seemed like a surefire way of getting just that last little bit of confirmation, another sign that he was not just fucking up all the clues that Sam was sending.

Dean wasn't sure whether he was delighted at Sam's lack of twitchiness or kind of disappointed when he didn't look up from his book when Dean walked into the kitchen from his bedroom. He decided on a bit of both while he checked the freezer—hamburgers tonight, definitely: Dean was positive he could cook them without burning the place down, and they could toast the buns with the pizza tray again. He was getting pretty fond of that thing.

Dean pulled the burgers out of the freezer, and then leaned into the fridge to check out their supply of other foods. "Hey Sam, we're getting low on juice, maybe we should head out tomorrow to pick up a few things. Whaddaya think?"

There was a short pause, then a startled, "Oh—" and a thump as the book landed on the coffee table. Dean had kinda been counting on how Sam always moved to see him when he talked, never shouting through doors or even over the breakfast bar.

Dean straightened, turning partially toward the entryway, his damp, chilled hair feeling very cold against his suddenly warm skin as Sam appeared.

For all the times Dean had thought Sam was hard to read, this was not one of them. Sam's eyes went perfectly round, his lips forming an equally perfect small O—and then he stumbled back until his back hit the wall opposite the kitchen entryway. He remained there, hands pressing flat to the wall like he was afraid he would be sucked away if he lost contact with the white plaster.

Dean didn't know whether to be tremendously flattered, turned on, or concerned. But he couldn't keep himself from following Sam's retreat, even as Sam's eyes grew impossibly wider. "Hey, Sammy," he said softly, leaning against the doorway, lifting his right hand until his fingers rested against the wall a couple inches away from Sam’s desperate, splayed fingers. "You okay?"

He could see Sam's pulse jumping in his neck, how fast and shallow his breath came. But it wasn't the same kind of panic Dean had seen too many times before. He thought— _ thought _ —it was a good sign.

Greatly daring, he took Sam's hand. "No, seriously, you okay?"

Sam's eyes were fixed somewhere else in the kitchen, but kept flickering back to Dean's chest, his throat, sometimes even reaching Dean's eyes before pulling away again. His breathing wasn't slowing down. But Dean noticed that the pulse always jumped in his throat when Sam looked back to Dean's chest. And, yeah, Dean was having a hard time looking away from Sam's throat.

He was pretty sure now that Sam wasn't panicking. Or not  _ just  _ panicking. And that simultaneously freaked him out and turned him on.  _ Down, Winchester. _

Fuck, then again, he'd like to go down on Sam. And that was  _ not  _ PG and not okay even though it would be fucking wonderful, and he fucking  _ wanted_...

Dean cut the difference and leaned closer, close enough that they could kiss if Sam just shifted a little to the left. "It's okay, Sam," he whispered. "Anything's okay, I've got you. Anything you want, Sam." He rubbed his thumb over the back of Sam's hand and tried to get his own breathing under control, but it was damn hard when Sam was still staring at his mostly bare body like it was either a monster about to eat him or the best-looking piece of pie in the world. And Dean knew that right now he kinda wanted to be both.

Sam's right hand lifted slightly, the same as it had the first night they went to bed, with that same painful caution, but this time Sam didn't even get close. Before the fingers had done more than twitch toward Dean, Sam flattened them to his own chest and took a deep, shaky breath.

That was enough of a sign for Dean. Enough to push just a little more. "No, Sam, it's okay. You can have anything, Sam. You can touch me, if you want."

Sam's eyes snapped up to his face, pupils wide and dark. There was almost no expression on his face, and he just stayed there, staring into Dean's face like he could divine an answer there. It was disturbing and flattering—Dean had been the focus of a lot of hot or threatening looks before, but never a gaze so intense, so crucial—but it went on a very long time, stretching out like a shifter's true limbs elongating during a transformation, like a spider building a web, until Dean didn't know what was happening any more, wasn't sure what he had done and whether it was right or wrong.

Just when he was getting pretty sure he had fucked everything up, he saw Sam's eyes flicker, shuttering off for a moment in a way that Dean—who had seen shapeshifter eye-flickers and more than one video of a demon's eyes changing color—couldn't compare to anything else. Then  _ Sam  _ was looking at him again with something peculiar and hidden in his eyes. While his left hand tightened around Dean's, he lowered his right from his chest and placed it directly against Dean's groin, pressing and sliding down.

Dean jerked back, catching Sam's wrist and snatching it away. He had both Sam's hands now and was holding him away, staring down at him because Sam was  _ fucking _ looking at the ground again. This was bad, Dean knew. He shouldn't be holding Sam's hands away from him as though they had frozen in the middle of some awkward formal dance. But he needed a moment to catch his breath while he struggled with some seriously contrary responses. On one hand,  _ holy fuck, Sam had just touched his dick_—on the other, he was swallowing back bile and not entirely sure why.

He wanted Sam. He fucking ached for him. He wanted Sam touching him, he wanted to make Sam come in his hand. But there had been something wrong with what had just happened. The whole point of the PG rule had been because the few glimpses he had gotten into Sam's psyche about sex had shown him nothing he wanted to know, and, honestly, nothing he was ready to deal with. That wasn't even a cop-out, but a fact, like knowing that he couldn't drive through a blizzard with a half-full tank of gas or take on a mated pair of quetzalcoatl without backup. Worse, there was no backup for this situation, no gauge to tell him when he was running out of second chances, or when something he had done had pushed Sam closer to the brink. Yeah, that one touch—not light, not innocent, with perfect fucking pressure—had felt fucking amazing, but even right now Dean didn't want to know why Sam had done it.

Sam, of course, had frozen up at Dean's first quick move, eyes dropping away to a fixed point somewhere around his toes. He wasn't struggling against Dean's hands, was barely doing anything but keeping himself upright, and something in the angle of his shoulders, the way he kept his head, reminded Dean of a dog that knew it had disobeyed and wasn't sure how its owner would react. And every sign of interest, of staring at Dean's chest or face, was gone.

Dean dropped Sam's hands like they had burned him, realized that was  not  the fucking signal he wanted to send, grabbed one again and held it lightly, so that Sam could pull away if he wanted. Sam didn't, just stared at Dean's hand like he couldn't quite figure out how it had wrapped itself around his own. Dean could barely tell that Sam was breathing.

_Damn it all to hell_. This had been so good for a second. Cautious, kind of hopeful and hot, and now he wasn't sure what had happened to shoot it all to hell. "Dammit," he breathed. He slid an arm over Sam's shoulders—which were trembling, slightly—and rested his forehead against Sam's. "That's not what I meant," he said. "Not what I....PG, Sam, okay? Above the waist, we should...we should go slow."

Sam said nothing. Dean had his eyes closed, was concentrating on feeling Sam breathe under his arm. This would be okay. Dean would make it okay.

"It's okay, Sam. Come on. It's okay." Very very slowly, he drew Sam's hand around until it rested on his back. Sam made a small noise and took a deep, shaky breath, while Dean felt Sam's fingers trembling against the skin of his bare back. Dean moved forward and wrapped his other arm around Sam, careful to keep his hands above Sam’s waist. _Fucking slow, Winchester_. He had to remember that even more than Sam.

When Sam spread his fingers over Dean’s back, as though he wanted to cover as much of Dean’s skin as possible, Dean felt a level of tension relax in him. He’d be lying if he said this position didn’t have the possibility of being very sexy. But not tonight. Now it was just the feeling that something good had been salvaged from what could have been very, very bad.

“Feels good, Sam,” he said, brushing his mouth down Sam’s temple and down to his cheek. “Really good.” Then, carefully, chastely, he kissed him on the corner of his mouth.

When Sam turned his head just enough to capture Dean’s, Dean felt the last layer of tension break. They were good again. He wouldn't forget—fucking  _ slow_, Winchester—but for the moment, at least, he could savor Sam's mouth against his and all the possibilities of a PG evening.

~*~

"Laughing Goat Coffeehouse," Dean repeated. "I'm not even kidding. That's what it's actually called."

Sam blinked at him over the top of his new book, the _ Oxford History of Medieval Europe_. "Why?"

"That, Sam, is a very good question." Dean sat back, dropping the well-worn brochure map of Boulder. It felt like he had been going through the thing with a fine-toothed comb for hours, trying to figure out where their next exploratory venture would lead them. Probably they should go back to the grocery store—the orange juice had disappeared so fast, Dean almost wondered if maybe he had been pouring more down Sam's throat than he should have, but vitamin C was good for you, wasn't it?—but Dean didn't think either of them were up to that at the moment. Another restaurant sounded like the best bet. "What do you say we go find out?"

Sam hesitated, lowering the brightly colored volume slowly to his lap. Dean knew Sam still wasn't completely sold on leaving the apartment, but every time got a little easier. Sometimes Dean just wanted to agree that they didn't have to go anywhere, but he knew the best thing for both of them was to go out again and again, getting a little better at it every time until Sam really truly believed that the normal people out and about on their day were not going to hurt him, hate him, or even butt in front of him in line at a stupid coffee shop. So he would keep finding places with stuff that Sam had never seen before—hell, Dean had never been to a coffeehouse that featured goats, laughing or otherwise—so that Dean would have something to delight and distract him while he was terrified.

It kept getting better. Dean had to remind himself of that every time they went out. And it would be better this time, too.

"Sure," Sam said at last, the would-be casual tone as forced as ever, but it still made Dean glow with pride. He reached over to rest his hand on Sam's ankle and watched a smile bloom over Sam's face and a flush creep up his cheeks.

"I think you'll like it," Dean said. "It's downtown, we passed it when we were circling around last Sunday, remember? It had that purple and green canopy and the little round tables outside."

Sam nodded. "I remember. On Pearl Street. It looked...nice."

"Well, that settles it." Dean clapped his hand lightly over Sam's calf, then hoisted himself to his feet.

"They're supposed to have some pretty sweet drinks, and an 'intimate, organic elegance', whatever that means. We're going to miss happy hour, but I think that's probably a good thing." Dean shuddered dramatically. "If there's laughing goats there, anyway, I'd hate to see the place when they get a little alcohol in them. And you  _can't_ tell me that people don't slip the goats a little extra."

"Are there...actual goats?" Sam looked unsure whether Dean was teasing him. Dean wasn't completely certain himself. Maybe he was a little nervous because for the first time, this was a place he usually wouldn't set foot in (unless it was for a case, but he had done some pretty weird shit for a case, and this was  _ different_.)

"Sam, I couldn't tell you. I guess we'll find out."

~*~

Yep, Dean decided the moment they stepped through the door. This was definitely one of  _ those  _ coffee shops. The kind he'd never be caught dead in—before Sam. It was full of the usual cushy armchairs, preppy-looking people, and the sweet smell of java exposed to so many sugars, syrups, and esoteric processes that it couldn't honestly be called coffee anymore. The only big exception was the goats. Everywhere. Every time Dean made another sweep of the room, more goats—pictures, models, pottery, signs, thankfully no actual stuffed goat heads—kept popping out at him. It was decidedly unnerving. How had this place not pinged his hunter radar the first time he was scouting out the town?

But Sam seemed chill with general goatyness, even [ the demonic porcelain that looked rather more like a pissed-off, blue-veined cow ](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-f_QcfWkm-DU/UnnLJPwChkI/AAAAAAAAD6Q/wWhYwCPPNVw/s720/LGC%2520demonic%2520goat.jpg) , so Dean shook off his personal nerves and turned his attention to the menu scrawled across a huge chalkboard above the counter. The lower corner, enclosed in a big pink heart, advertised a special on free-trade soybeans from Tasmania.

There really were no limits on what he would do for Sam.

Dean directed his smile toward Sam's shoulder as they moved toward the counter, the expression widening and breaking open when Sam reached back, one hand tangling with his.

The girl behind the counter blushed when she saw them, but she was grinning, too. "What can I get for you guys?"

Dean switched Sam's hand to his left and threw his right arm over Sam's shoulder, pulling him close while scanning the menu for the drink loaded with the most sugar, fat, and syrup. "Let's get, uh—a hazelnut mocha with whipped cream. And sprinkles."

Jotting the order down on a cup, the barista tipped her toward the counter next to them. "All the toppings are over there."

"Awesome. And I'll take a cup of plain black Joe—if you  have  coffee in its natural state." He glared at the menu with mock suspicion. "I dunno if it already comes to you soaked in vanilla sugar extract or something."

"Nope, I gotcha covered." She caught Dean's eyes, and if anything her grin got wider. "It's Sumatran. You should like it just fine, as long as you don't mind something a little more exotic in your cup."

Dean grinned back. He was with Sam, but that didn't mean he couldn't notice when a pretty girl was flirting with him. "Well, I like it strong and hot."

"And straight?" She quirked an eyebrow at him and checked something off on the cup with a stronger flick of the wrist than absolutely necessary.

Dean hugged Sam a little closer. "My coffee," he said, almost regretfully.

She shrugged and punched a couple more things into the cash register. "What a shame. That'll be six seventy-two."

Dean paid and then pulled Sam over to wait for their order. That had been a nice diversion from Sam's nerves, but now that he wasn't chatting up a girl he couldn't help scanning the room, waiting for a threat that he knew, intellectually, wasn't going to appear. He hadn't expected it to be this crowded on an early Friday afternoon, but the seating was pretty limited. When a table opened up in the back, Dean took Sam over to grab the seats, and then returned to retrieve their drinks. They were right behind a pack of obnoxious high school girls—Dean's internal chick meter landed firmly on  _ jailbait  _ as well as  _ easy_—but they had a comprehensive view of the room, and their backs against the two walls. Even better, they were close to an emergency exit, aka the bathrooms.

Sam took his chair gingerly, as though it might break under his weight, and Dean did his best to unobtrusively scoot his own closer, so he and Sam could touch knees if, y'know, they wanted.

"Watch out," Dean told him, as Sam wrapped his fingers around the cupholder. "They make it hot enough to scald your tongue."

Sam's eyes widened, and he put the cup back down, rubbing his hand nervously on his knee until Dean caught it. Closing his fingers around Sam's hand was like coming home. "If you take the lid off, it'll probably be okay in a couple minutes."

Sam gazed at Dean's hand around his, and looked up with a hopeful, watery smile that felt even better.

~

Sam hadn't known what to expect when Dean mentioned this coffee shop—not that he knew what to expect most of the time when he and Dean went anywhere, though he was getting better, he  _ knew  _ he was—but now that they were there and settled down with their coffee, he...liked it. The shop had bright paintings and nice people, the coffee was sweet with sugar, flavor and cream, the music was soothing, and Dean was making jokes and holding his hand.

It was a really good spot, too, where both he and Dean could have their backs to a wall and Sam had a good view of all the reals in the place. Nothing would be able to sneak up on him without him noticing. Even though he knew that Dean would protect him, he felt better knowing that he could see all possible avenues of attack.

The only discordant note was the group of young women right next to them. He couldn't hear most of their conversation, but even the tones were high and grating, like the complaints of fresh meat before FREACS taught them what a monster could expect.

But that was fine and easy to ignore, because Dean was grinning at him and the coffee was rich and filling—Sam could have just had one of these mocha things for an entire meal—and he was managing to be in a public place with Dean again and neither crawl into a corner nor panic about all the reals.

Sam was fine until Dean downed the last of his coffee. "Hey, Sam, will be you be okay here for, like, two minutes while I take a piss?"

Sam nodded. That wouldn't be so bad, knowing the whole time where Dean was, knowing he was coming back. After all, Dean would have to go past Sam to get to the only exit, and the reals in the coffeehouse weren't going to try to attack him the second he was gone. Sam was safe.

"Sure, Dean. I'll be right here." Sam did his best to smile, and got another light kiss as a reward.  _ Good choice, Sam, maybe you're finally figuring out what makes him happy. _

Sam couldn't keep his eyes from following Dean to the back of shop until he stepped out of sight. Then Sam dropped his gaze to the table, working to keep his posture casual, no different from any of the reals around him, though he no longer had the confidence to look up and check. He tried to fight his heartbeat down. Despite how hard he wanted to trust that this would be fine and nothing would happen in the few minutes Dean was away, Sam couldn't quite avoid the automatic response to Dean leaving him. It's going to be fine , he told himself.  _Just like when Dean goes on a run. He'll be back to check on you in a few minutes_. But this time he wasn't locked safely in the apartment. This time a dozen reals sat mere feet away, and if Sam made any wrong moves they would be able to tell.

He turned the coffee cup slowly in his hands, focusing on the creamy liquid and how good it tasted, how wonderful Dean had been to bring him here, to buy it for him. That was the trade-off, wasn't it? Dean brought Sam places, gave him good things, and in exchange Sam had to cope with the people around him. Sam could do that. He could learn, and he did a little better each time. He still didn't understand why Dean wanted him to interact with reals or feel comfortable in public places, but Sam didn't have to understand a task to perform it well, and he didn't need a reason to obey. This was no different than a project from the Director or an order from the guards, except that it was so much more important. But he couldn't think about how very important this was, either, because that didn't change anything, only made his chest clench more, made it harder to breathe. He wouldn't disappoint Dean. End of debate.

It shouldn't be so hard, not when Dean kept bringing Sam to these good places. Even the day in the park—yeah, Sam had thought he was practically signing his own execution authorization after his accident, but they had ended up at the bagel shop with two very nice reals. Of course Dean wouldn't bring him somewhere there were hunters or guards, or people who would take one look at him and assume that he was up for grabs. He should trust Dean more.

After a minute of staring at his coffee—he had automatically started counting his heartbeats the second Dean disappeared—Sam summoned the courage to lift his eyes, just a little, and look around the room. This was possibly his favorite place so far, except for the library and their apartment. The pictures hung on the deep mahogany walls showed lush meadows, a bright blue sky, and animals—especially goats—in warm browns and oranges, and the reals scattered around the room were smiling and more relaxed than even in the donut shop. Yes, this was a good place.

He also liked the music playing from somewhere overhead. It wasn't at all like Dean's, but it was soft, and—he didn't have words to begin to describe it, but it was just  _ nice_.

A song, with a lot of what he thought was piano, faded to a close. Sam had a second to savor the ending before one of the nearby girls slapped her hand on the table and let out a shriek that cut straight through the background murmur of conversation. Sam flinched and dropped his eyes, fighting to reclaim the calm of a second before.

"No way—no  _way!_ You're totally bullshitting me. _Tell me_ that's bullshit."

Keeping calm was hard when the six reals kept talking higher and louder, drowning out every attempt Sam made to block them out and focus on something else.

"I swear to God, Tina, I saw it myself."

One of the girls, numerous plastic bangles dangling around her wrist, gestured dismissively—Sam couldn't stop himself from glancing up at the sound, instinct telling him that it could be some kind of attack—and sniffed. "Well excuse me, but next time I see that ugly whore I'm gonna punch her face in!"

"Jeez, Tina," another girl said, rolling her eyes. "Way to be harsh."

"Whatever, I don't care. She  _ is  _ a whore, and just thinking about her plastering those fat lips all over his face makes me sick. I'm gonna vomit, not even kidding. I mean, what the fuck makes her think she deserves... _ anything  _ from a guy like Brad. Ohmygod, someone needs to warn him before he gets a  _ disease_."

The coffee shop lost focus, and Sam couldn't draw air or fight the sudden dizzy nausea in the pit of his stomach. He dropped his forehead into his hands, squeezed his eyes closed, and struggled to breathe, because he couldn't draw attention to himself, that was the last thing...the very last thing...and when Dean came back...

Sam couldn't finish the thought, because everything that had made him happy a second ago—the idea of looking into Dean's face, the taste of the sweet coffee,  _ kisses _ —had turned to ash in his mouth, because he had  _ remembered _ . Even that fragment of a conversation—clearly there was some dirty freak whore out there that those reals despised as much as the Director had despised Sam—served to remind him of what he never should have forgotten.

It didn't matter that none of the reals recognized him as a monster. It didn't even matter that Dean didn't seem to care that Sam was nothing but a freak (how could Dean know and care and still hold him, touch him, let him sleep in the same bed?). Dean had always known that Sam was a monster—unidentified, yes, but that didn't really make a difference—and had still treated him almost like a real, like he truly cared. Dean had known about that part of Sam since they were children and, seeing himself through Dean's eyes, Sam could almost believe that Dean's kindness was permissible. Not deserved, but he could imagine that if Dean wanted that, it wasn't completely wrong, completely an abomination.

Dean had always known what Sam was. But he couldn't possibly know what Sam had  _ done_.

It hadn't mattered so much when Sam had been in camp, when anything besides his ass was fair game, and he was still considered a virgin if he kept that essential part untouched. He'd walked out of camp with Dean, expecting to lose that—wanting to lose that, even if he'd been told hundreds of times that he'd only be a good fuck a handful of times—and believing that Dean understood the same rules that the guards had enforced, beaten, and fucked into him. But the world outside of Freak Camp was larger than he had ever believed. He couldn't have imagined hamburgers, pillows softer than Dean's hair, kisses—though who could have prepared him for kisses, what words could have explained them?—and Dean had been blowing through all the rules, cutting off his collar, touching him with kindness, giving him food and a bed and opportunity after opportunity to show Dean that he could be something, that he could do whatever was wanted, and never claiming that one thing that was Dean's right as a hunter, a real, and Dean Winchester.

But now Sam remembered what he had done, where his lips and hands had been, and he couldn't, in any sick little part of himself, imagine what he had been thinking when he let Dean kiss him.

Dean didn't know. He couldn't possibly have known how many times Sam had been on his knees in Head Alley, the things he had done with his mouth. And if he did, he'd be...disgusted would be the best of it. Angry. Furious. Violent, and rightly so. Sam had been basically  _ lying _ every time he let Dean touch him with his lips, every second Sam had tricked Dean into treating him like he was something clean.

The Director had said more than once that monsters corrupted as easily as they breathed, because it was a natural defense mechanism. That he had to gag Sam sometimes just to stop him from instinctively trying to deceive, manipulate, and warp the reals around him to his own ends.

If Dean knew, he would be livid. He'd slit Sam's throat or call the ASC for a pick-up team before night fell, and he'd be right to do so. But Sam wasn't just sickened and terrified by remembering what he deserved, by the prospect of what Dean  _ could  _ find out. Dean didn't know and wasn't likely to know unless he talked to the guards or hunters Sam had serviced. What was worse—what ripped Sam into small pieces and made him almost want a hunter to walk in and tell Dean everything right then—was that he knew now, again, what he was. Not only did he not have the right to kiss Dean, but he had to watch himself better. If he didn't have the strength or the legal ability to relieve Dean of the danger of contact with him, he could at least—he had the  _ obligation  _ to—watch himself so that Dean wasn't contaminated by a freak. So he wasn't being manipulated, changed, fooled, forced into that denigration.

Dean could fuck him. Could order him to his knees, bend him over, or jerk himself off with Sam's hands and body. But Sam had no right to kiss him, to contaminate him with his lips. No right to lean into his arms. No fucking right to let Dean think Sam deserved anything but an order and a whip. He couldn't do that, not to Dean.

~

Dean felt pretty good when he came out of the bathroom—it was a good day, the coffee had been smooth, and now they could go home and make out some more before Dean put another frozen pizza in for dinner—right up to the second he caught sight of Sam. Then he sprinted the eight feet from the bathroom to the table, shoving people out of his way, adrenaline making him wish it were a hundred yards so maybe he could work out more of the panic before he had to try to be sensible for Sam.

Sam was right where Dean had left him, his half-full coffee resting about the same place, but he was a different Sam entirely from the cautiously happy, smiling, slightly nervous one Dean had left no more than five fucking minutes ago. This was the Sam of last week: hunched in his chair, head in his hands, shoulders tight as he tried to make himself as small as possible.

Even before Dean had properly landed in his chair, he grabbed Sam's arm, desperately tugging his hands away from his face. "Sam, are you hurt?"

Sam dropped his arms, jerking back as though Dean's fingers burned his skin. He would have fallen from the chair if he weren't wedged against the wall and if Dean's hands weren't willing to let go of him that quickly. There could still be blood or an injury  _ somewhere _ .

Dean swallowed painfully and forced himself to let Sam go while panic began crawling around in his stomach, growing and twisting with every second. Sam didn't move when Dean cautiously shifted away, didn't make eye contact when Dean said his name. "Sam. C'mon, man, look at me. Please."  _ Shit_, what had happened? "Please look at me, Sam. Tell me what happened."

Sam didn't look up. He just shook his head quickly, breathing shaky and uneven. Another panic attack, then, or close enough. Dean felt lost, drowning. Every other time he'd had an idea what set Sam off. He had to know, he  _ had  _ to so he could stop it, so he could take out anyone or anything that so much as made Sam cringe. "Sam, did someone say something to you? Did someone—touch you? Sam?"

Sam shook his head again, frantically, and Dean knew he had lost him. There was nowhere they could go from here, and they had to retreat to familiar ground,  _ now_, before whatever the hell this was got worse.

Dean stood. "Come on, Sam. Let's get out of here." He moved back, making room for Sam to pass between the wall and the cluster of gossiping teenage girls. Sam rose stiffly, holding his cup of coffee between both hands, head bowed to his chest. When Dean followed, he laid a reassuring hand on Sam's back. That same move that had calmed him every single other time Sam had been upset, but now Sam  _ shuddered_, so hard the coffee spilled over his fingers. He didn't pull away, but the taut muscles jumped under Dean's touch.

With a sharp breath, Dean snapped his hand back.

He couldn't look at Sam in the Impala. Sam didn't look out the window, didn't look at Dean, didn't drink from the coffee cup cradled in his hands. After they reached the apartment, Dean took his time putting away his keys and wallet and hanging his jacket before turning back in time to see Sam carefully set the cup down on the breakfast bar and clamp his arms over his chest. Sam's posture was too much like the night Dean had caught him scratching his arms. It looked too fucking much like Sam was in pain and Dean could do nothing.

Moving forward, he grabbed Sam's hands—more forcefully than usual, but he had to break through this shell. He was determined to reach the Sam he had had barely half an hour ago, who had met his eyes and  wanted  to move closer to him. But Sam's hands—after Dean unpinned them from their place over Sam's chest—were limp in his, unresponsive.

"Sam. If you don't talk to me, I can't—I want to  _ help_, Sam. If could just understand whatever the fuck—dammit, Sam, _ look at me_."

Sam pulled his head up, but his eyes were blank and fixed on some point beyond Dean, nowhere near his eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm s-sorry."

"Fuck, no Sam, no." Dean felt like his heart was breaking, like nothing he could do right now would help, and instinct kicked in, the knowledge that Sam was hurting and he had to stop it. He leaned in unthinkingly to brush Sam's mouth with his—not a fucking  _ kiss  _ even, just a touch, just proof that Sam was there and Dean was there and they would get through this somehow, like they had before—but long before lips could touch skin, Sam cringed, turning his face and pulling away so sharply that he almost unbalanced.

Dean snapped back and stared. Only his hands in Sam's kept him from falling, only his solid support had stopped Sam from hitting the breakfast bar when he stumbled, but that meant nothing. He couldn't quite feel his hands holding Sam up, wasn't sure that he would be able to remember how to breathe when it became important again. Right then he couldn't tell if the pain in his chest was the need to inhale or the knowledge that Sam had just turned away from him.

Dean held himself still while Sam steadied, until he got his feet solidly under him, and then Dean released him, taking two steps backward.

"Sorry, Sam," he said. "I shouldn't...won't...yeah."

He flexed his hands to see if they really were working—everything felt numb, and he wondered seriously if he had short-circuited something in his head—and then grabbed the remote. He needed noise right now. He needed something to think of that was not Sam staring at him. Dean didn't look at Sam's face, his posture or even his feet to see if he was watching Dean with loathing or fear. He couldn't take either right now.

He put the volume on high, walked to his bedroom and closed the door.

~*~

Sam didn't want to be watching the television. The flickering lights reminded him of the strobes occasionally used in interrogations or the spotlights he had seen cutting through the yard during the demon attack years ago. Usually that didn't bother him—when Dean was next to him, or when he could sink himself into a book—but right now Dean was in the other room, and even thinking about reading made him sick.

It felt like forever. It felt like no time at all. Sam was so sunk into his own thoughts (he was just a whore; something he had done had made Dean even more upset; he just wished he could turn off the light and noise and be alone with his misery, but Dean had turned it on and he didn't have the right) that he didn't hear Dean leave his room, didn't know he was coming until he was just  _ there_, staring at him from beside the television.

Looking into Dean's blank, drawn face, Sam tightened his hands over his own arms and bowed his head to his knees. Here it was. Dean couldn't just ignore it any more. Sam had absolutely, definitely done something wrong, and there was only one logical result.

"Sam." Dean's voice sounded rough, like he'd been screaming. "Can I sit down?"

Sam's hands tightened involuntarily, until he felt his nails digging into the flesh of his arm, and he abruptly let go. Dean had been very clear about that rule, that he could not hurt himself— _ wouldn't do a good enough job anyway_—and he couldn't. He would not break any rules. He was obedient. Not good or clean or worthwhile, but obedient.

He couldn't answer, though. It had been a question, but there was no possible answer that Sam could give. The couch was Dean's and Sam was Dean's and he could do what he liked on and with his property.

"Yeah, I'll sit down then." Dean lowered himself—had he been hurt? Why was he moving that way, like something was broken?—onto the couch more than a foot away from Sam. He took the remote from the coffee table and turned off the television. The sudden absence of light and noise hurt almost as much as its presence had grated. Like cold water on a fresh burn.

"Sam."

Sam flinched. He had always loved that Dean used his name. Probably without Dean, he would have lost that years ago and been nothing but Pretty Freak and Whore. But now it hurt because, really, those two things were all Sam was. Maybe it would hurt less if Dean acknowledged that.

Dean continued, not really waiting for any kind of response. Not that Sam expected him to. "Sam, I know you've been...they hurt you. Those bastards at camp. I've seen the black eyes and the..." He waved at Sam's forearm.

Sam's mouth went dry, and his right hand retightened around his left wrist. He could feel the bones grinding together and couldn't stop himself.

"But I need...I think at this point I should ask..." Dean closed his eyes and took a deep, pained breath. Had he broken a rib?  _ How? _ "Sam, did they...fuck, I don't even know how to ask."

Sam didn't know what Dean was asking. He didn't want to know. Because even though Dean had no way to know, couldn't possibly have learned in such a short period of time, it seemed like he was asking about  _ that_.

" _ Fuck _ ." The word was quiet and heartfelt. "Sam, I know they hurt you, but did you...Sam, I need to know...did they..."

And suddenly Sam knew exactly what Dean wanted to know, and he couldn't hold back the panic, the complete, blinding realization that Dean wanted to know if he had been fucked.

He hadn't. Dean had to believe that, or this was all over. It would be over tonight. "No!" The word was too violent, too much like a lie, so he tried to drag it back, but Dean  _ had  _ to believe him. "No, no, no, Dean, they didn't, I d-didn't l-let them, I p-promise. No, please please please, they n-never did, I  _ swear_."

He was practically clawing at his leg with his left hand while he almost crushed his own wrist with the right. He could feel his throat closing up, and  _ fuck  _ how could he be close to crying at a time like this, when it mattered so much that Dean believe him? Tears, begging, those were not the things that had ever convinced or staved off pain.

When Dean caught his wrist, pulled his hands apart, Sam sobbed once and forced his body to be still, tried to be obedient, whatever that meant at this moment, whatever Dean wanted, whatever would relieve the pain Sam could see in Dean's body. But Dean just planted Sam's hands together very firmly on the couch, next to his own thighs.

"Okay, okay, it's okay, Sam. I believe you. It's okay. Don't do that, Sam, don't hurt yourself. I believe you, it's okay."

Dean didn't sound like he completely believed him, sounded like Sam had to do more to prove himself. He had heard that tone many times in his life, and he was still here, alive and sitting on Dean's couch because he had obeyed, because he had proven his sincerity in any way that was necessary, and he would again.

"They didn't, Dean. I swear they didn't." When Dean reached for him, Sam curled up in spite of himself, even though everything he was belonged to Dean.

"Sam." Sam felt Dean take his cheek in one hand, raising his head until he faced Dean. The touch was still gentle, soft, and Sam didn't understand why there wasn't any pain. Where was the fucking pain? "I believe you, Sam." Dean sounded like he was trying to prove it to Sam. Sam didn't understand. "It's okay. I'm glad those bastards didn't... It's okay."

Something was wrong with Dean. Sam didn't know what it was, but he couldn't stop shaking, couldn't keep his hands still on the couch, couldn't even keep his eyes locked on Dean's without trembling.

“Yeah, I’m glad they didn’t.” Dean let go of his face and leaned away, rested his head against the back of the couch and stared at the ceiling. “’Cause that’s just not okay, Sam. No one should do that. You understand that?”

“Yes, Dean. I und-d-derstand. They d-didn’t.” There was something sad in Dean’s eyes, like he really didn’t believe Sam at all, like he regretted what he would have to do to Sam because he was lying now. But Sam  _wasn_ ’t  lying, he hadn’t, he wouldn’t, and if Dean didn’t believe that, Sam would be lucky to end up dead by morning.

The other option, if he couldn’t show this one time that he had done everything he could to stay whole for Dean, was that he'd be handed to Crusher by the Director when he was returned to FREACS because he wouldn’t even be worth training any more. “They d-didn’t, I s-swear.”

“Not okay for anyone.” Dean was talking to himself more than anything. Sam couldn’t think, couldn’t think of anything he could do to prove to Dean that he was still undefiled for the taking.

Sam had almost decided to go to his knees—anything right now was better than disappointing Dean—to try to show Dean how satisfying and thorough he could be before Dean brought out a whip or a knife, when Dean stood. He still looked hollowed out, in pain, and he wasn’t so much as glancing at Sam.

“All right, Sam. Go to bed, or something. Read, watch TV, I don’t…” He shook his head. “I’m going out. I’ll be back in a few hours.” He glanced back once, and then away. “You’ll be safe here, I promise.”

Dean picked up his jacket, wallet, and keys without looking back. Sam had no idea what was going on, what was happening. He would be _ safe? _ But where was Dean going? What? Why?

There had been orders, but Sam couldn’t process them because Dean was pulling on his jacket and opening the door.

Sam watched. He  _ stared_, even though that should have earned him a beating all by itself, because this had to be a test, a joke, maybe even a punishment. Any of those things he would understand. But not Dean  _ leaving_.

Only once did Dean glance back, and that time his eyes didn’t even make it to Sam’s face.

“You’ll be safe,” he repeated, voice even harsher, not like Dean's at all. Then, almost inaudibly: “Safe from  _ everybody_.”

The door slammed shut after him.


	9. Chapter 9

Sam had only been sick two or three times in all the time he had been in Freak Camp, and never seriously, but he still recognized it when it came. First a cough that he couldn't quite get out of his throat, no matter how hard he tried to control it—though he had managed never to cough when Dean was in the same room—then shivers down his arms and his back, nausea and tremors that he couldn't quite stop. In the last few days, since he had remembered what he had done, why Dean should despise him and never touch him—it had been harder and harder to hold down the greasy, rich foods that Dean bought for him. 

He hated throwing up food that Dean had bought for him— _ungrateful useless whore_ —but he didn't think that he would be able to survive if Dean caught him doing it. He wouldn't have to wait for Freak Camp to die if he turned away from vomiting up the latest burger or bowl of chili and saw Dean's horrified face looking down at him. He wouldn't survive that. So he managed to eat, to smile, to even look Dean in the eye while his stomach clenched and writhed, and then quietly excused himself to the bathroom where he emptied everything out again.

His stomach he could handle, but the cough was getting worse every day and holding it in felt like he was choking himself. He felt dimly, bitterly grateful that Dean had stopped kissing him. How horrible would it be for Dean to kiss not just a monster, not just a whore, but a diseased, pestilent one? Just imagining getting Dean sick made him shudder in a completely different way.

Friday night, when he first felt the chills and the world slid in and out of focus a little, he wondered why the hell he was getting sick  _now_  of all times, when he had been healthy for years and years in Freak Camp in infinitely worse conditions and only now did it really matter.

But by the time Sunday night arrived, he was done feeling sorry for himself or cursing the universe and the immune system that was suddenly stabbing him in the back. It didn't matter that Dean didn't hit, burn, or drug him, and had given him the best food and conditions he could imagine. Sam accepted the fact that he was a monster and that this was just what had to happen eventually. He had somehow managed not to fuck up everything with Dean through his behavior—though he was doing something wrong, or maybe Dean  _knew_ , why else would Dean be leaving every night, not touching or looking at him anymore?—so his body had come and done it for him. 

Sam sat on the soft bed in his generous room and let himself shake because he couldn't help it, didn't have the strength to stop the tremors any more. He felt damn cold, but he knew that getting beneath the covers wouldn't help, and that if he tried to take a hot shower—even assuming he could get as far as the bathroom without Dean _seeing_ —it might help the horrible feeling that he was freezing to death in a warm room, but he wouldn't be able to stand under the pounding heat for very long before his equilibrium gave way. Much safer to stay in his room, where Dean wouldn't see him, and let the shaking take him, let the sickness pound through him while he prayed it would leave him, Dean would forgive him, that his life to could return to what it had been barely three days ago. He couldn't believe a shred of the hope.

At Freak Camp, if a freak got sick—few monsters did, most were immune to what could get passed around—no one would touch him, no one even looked at him. No one wanted to risk catching one of the few diseases that all species and variations could actually get. Even the guards wouldn't touch a freak if they could tell that he had something. The only option was to lie in the hard, cold bunk and shake. Either you got up again in three days or you went to Special Research, where every monster went to die. 

Sam had no idea how it would work for him in Dean's apartment. He knew that reals had hospitals and doctors, but he neither expected nor wanted to go somewhere with sick reals, people who needed to have the least amount of natural and supernatural contamination possible. And Sam was sure that whatever disease he had, it would be devastating for a real. Monsters were supposed to be stronger, harder to kill, and right now he could barely breathe.

He didn't know what Dean would do when he found out. He hoped that Dean would just let him lie in sticky sweat and try to burn the illness out. He would get up or he would die. That would be nice, but he wasn't putting any confidence in ephemeral hope. Why would Dean want him dying in this beautiful room, this comfortable bed? Monsters didn't deserve this, least of all when they finally died. He had to clench his eyes shut and fist his hands to hold back the surge of nausea when he realized the walls were thin enough that he would be able to hear the phone call Dean made to the ASC for freak pick-up. He wouldn't want Sam contaminating the Impala on the drive back to Nevada. There were dirty black vans with chains on the walls for things like Sam.

Sam thought he had time. This was the first day he hadn't left the room, and when he had gone out yesterday—sat with Dean for three meals at the kitchen table, gone to the bathroom, stared at a book while Dean flipped through channels on the TV, his movements jerky and unhappy—Dean hadn't seemed to notice anything wrong. At least he hadn't called him out on the unsatisfactory behavior, hadn't given him an ultimatum. It was his first day down, and Sam thought that he could get himself back up in a couple more, at least enough to maintain the illusion that he was all right.

He thought he had fucking time.

But then he heard Dean walk up to his door, one boot scraping to a stop over the carpet. "Hey Sam, what do you want for dinner tonight? I'm thinking Chinese or pizza. Your call."

Dean expected an answer. Dean would stay there until Sam responded. Sam opened his mouth to say "pizza" or "I'm not hungry" or  _something_ , but all that came out was a choked, croaking noise that he didn't think would reach beyond the door.

Panic didn't help him clear his throat. Worse, he couldn't clear his throat without coughing, which would give away how sick and useless he was. He scraped at his throat, his shoulders shaking as he tried to get phlegm and bile out of the way without making a sound that would give him away. Dean knocked on the closed door again, harder.

"Hey, Sam, you've got to answer me, man. I haven't seen you all day, the least you can do is tell me what you want."

~

Dean fucking hated this, standing in front of Sam's closed door, asking him what he wanted for dinner when he really wanted to ask him where the fuck Dean had gone wrong to make Sam run away from him like this. Ever since that stupid fucking goat coffee shop, Sam had become miles more withdrawn, less willing to speak or even stay in the same room with Dean.

It hurt. It hurt more than Dean had expected, even from those times he had thought about how it would feel if Sam didn't need him anymore, if he had the strength and independence to just get up and leave. Sam hadn't talked to him most of Saturday, just came out for meals, to pretend to read—Dean wasn't fucking blind, and even if Sam remembered to turn the pages every once in a while, Dean could tell that the book wasn't really being looked at—and to go back into his room again, looking pale and withdrawn, like he'd seen a ghost.

But he hadn't, because Dean had checked the wards four times over Saturday, even laying an extra line of salt out over the carpet, and nothing did the trick.

After Sam made his excuses to go to bed early and left Dean with a deck of cards in his hand and the empty hope that they could put something together again. Dean had put the cards away—had Sam noticed and rejected that offer of something neutral to do together? Or had he not even noticed because he was so withdrawn into his head?—and grabbed his coat to hit the second closest bar. He'd gotten wasted at the closest on Friday, and he didn't like to repeat himself too often.

But by the time he had driven back to the condo—drunk, but not wasted—he'd decided that if Sam didn't want to talk for a while, that was okay. If he wanted to spend the least amount of time in Dean's company as possible, that was okay. He needed his space. Dean shouldn't have pushed about that whole abuse thing, he should have just left Sam alone, especially when Sam was looking already so shattered and unsteady (fucking  _damn_ goat-shop). But he had, and the best thing he could do now was just back the fuck off and let Sam recover. Because Sam  _would_ recover. And if it took him not talking to Dean, or communicating with him, or being able to stand his company for a little while, that was okay.

That plan was fine—okay, not at all fine, horrible and rending and miserable and fucked-up, but the best one he had—until Dean woke up, slightly hungover, on Sunday just-after-morning, stumbled to the kitchen, took his aspirin and orange juice, and put out the dishes for breakfast. He figured he would wait for Sam to come out—Sam generally waited until Dean was up to leave his room—before pouring anything out. If meals were the only thing they would have together, the only time Sam could bear to be near him, then that was what he would take, but he wouldn't cheat himself of that. So he waited. And drank the orange juice, against the nagging pain in his skull.

At two-fifteen, still alone, Dean finished the last of the orange juice, got up and put away everything.

Dean wasn't even sure what he was hoping for, but he did some internet surfing in the living room, looking for hunts that he probably wouldn't take. He cleaned his knives. He checked the salt lines. And the door to Sam's room remained noiselessly, completely closed until the sun went down and it was dinner time again. So Dean went over for one last try, for one last desperate gamble because Sam  _had_ to eat and it was the time to eat so it followed that Dean would see him again.

He asked at the door, trying to keep his stress and gnawing desperation locked down, and got nothing.

He had been ready not to see Sam much. To give him some space, maybe just talk with him at meals, maybe not even then. But not seeing him at all  _for an entire day_ was too fucking much. And now he wasn't saying _anything_ , and all Dean wanted to do was charge in there and grab him, maybe shake him until he fucking realized that Dean didn't want to hurt him. Which Dean knew made no sense and was about the stupidest thing he could do, but it was hard to think of a better plan when his muscles itched to move and his nerves crawled at the silence, the dead accusations behind that door.

He settled for knocking on the wood again, harder. "Come on, Sam, don't leave me hanging here, just tell me which you want and I'll get the fuck out of your hair." He knew he sounded angry and he didn't care. Not too much. Didn't a guy fucking deserve to be angry once in a while?

But when the silence lasted longer than some kind of shunning or guilt trip usually would, a little voice wondered if Sam was even in there anymore.

Dean couldn’t imagine Sam on his own in the world, couldn’t see Sam willing to go out and interact with people, but he still couldn’t shake the gut-deep fear that maybe Sam hadn’t been able to take it any more—whatever the fuck had happened between them—and had left.

Every day, every hour that Sam refused to talk to him or even be in the same room as him, the little voice inside Dean got that much stronger, the one that said that all of this, the struggle to get Sam out of Freak Camp, the half-nightmare, half-dream of the last three weeks, was nothing but an elaborate illusion, fantasizing the happiness and the pain together because he was that lonely and messed up.

It was a ridiculous idea that didn’t make sense for a second, but Dean couldn’t stop his hand from moving for the doorknob and turning it, even while reminding himself that he was just being a fucking stalker again, invading Sam’s privacy when he clearly wanted nothing to do with Dean. Dean braced himself for the flinch, the accusing eyes, the silence. He couldn't stop himself from opening that door, but he was ready to accept the consequences, another knife in the gut because he couldn't accept the obvious meaning of Sam's silence and leave him the fuck alone.

But all those thoughts flew straight out of Dean’s head when he saw Sam hunched on the edge of the bed, supporting himself with his stiff arms and shaking like a leaf. 

For one second, Dean thought that he was the reason that Sam shook, and then he saw the sweat glistening on his brow and the way his teeth clenched every time a tremor took his body—as though he was trying valiantly to fight them off.

Dean moved in almost without conscious thought. Sam tried to move away from him— _of course he doesn't want you near him, why shouldn’t he?_ —and would have slid off the bed, but Dean was there, catching him, pulling him back up, and sitting down next to him.

This close, Sam’s still-too-thin body in his arms, Dean could feel the shakes moving all through Sam’s body, the heat coming off him, and hear the rough rasp in his throat. He put a hand up to Sam’s forehead, ignoring the way Sam flinched—of course Sam expected to be hit—and almost jerked his palm away from the heat pouring off of Sam’s skin.

“Fuck Sam, you’re burning up,” Dean said.

Sam dropped his head, burying his face in Dean’s shoulder. He tried to speak—Dean could feel his lungs expanding, could see his throat working—but all that came out was a fit of desperate coughing. Sam turned his mouth into his own shoulder and clenched his eyes shut.

“I’m s-s-sorry,” he rasped eventually, when the coughing had subsided. “I tried not—“

"Shhhh," Dean said, pulling Sam closer. Who gave a damn that he was being a damned pervert again, that when he was healthy Sam would be pulling away by this point, wouldn't want him? Sam continued shaking against him, the vibrations moving from Sam's shoulder into Dean's chest. No damn way was he going to move away when Sam would fall without him, when Sam was hot enough, if not to fry an egg, then to reheat pizza. "You hungry at all?"

Sam shook his head, still hiding his face. He was limp in Dean's arms, but not in a way where he was  _trusting_ in Dean. It was more like whatever was going to happen, whatever Dean wanted to do to him, Sam couldn't work up the energy to resist, a willing, empty vessel of skin and bone in Dean's arms. Dean wondered if Sam had gained any fucking weight since he had gotten out of the camp.

"Come on, Sam," Dean said, shifting him carefully, suddenly convinced he was carrying something precious and breakable. "You're soaked. You need to get into dry clothes and under the covers."

Sam nodded again, and his hands moved to his chest, fumbling at the buttons on his shirt, until Dean braced him against his shoulder and reached up to undo the top button. Opening a shirt was strange from that angle, both like and unlike when he worked on buttons on himself, or opened a partner's shirt from the front, but he managed it.

And when he started peeling off the damp shirt, he acknowledged that it made him a little hot to feel Sam pressed against him, to be sliding his fingers under Sam’s shirt, baring his skin.

He recognized how sick that was, and tried very hard to keep the thought out of his face and body. Sam didn't need to be afraid of him, not right now. He wasn't that much of a bastard.

Then he saw the first scar, and it got a lot fucking easier not to be turned on by the body beneath him. It wasn't much by itself, a white starburst about the size of a dime, visible on the already pale strip of skin exposed when Dean pushed back the shirt. But it had a partner, about an inch away, and beneath that was a thick, ragged furrow that trailed down the side of Sam's ribs like he'd been grazed by something with a horn. Dean followed that white trailing mark, pushing the shirt farther back on Sam's shoulders, baring most of his chest and his upper arms, and realized that those pale, strange marks were only the beginning. It was as though he had followed one worm down to a nest and found hundreds.

Straight white scars forming grids, crooked scars, fat welts, thin scores, palm-sized pink plains of scarred skin and burns, layered over and over each other like the weave of an old rug, horrifying and almost beautiful if one could forget that it had been carved into human flesh. Dean couldn't. What he saw looking at Sam's skin was _pain_ , so much pain, years and years of it woven into Sam's skin where neither of them could escape or forget it.

Dean pulled the shirt off harder than he should have and forced Sam around so that Sam's face was pressed against his chest and Dean could look over Sam's shoulder, run his hands down the textured sea of old wounds. If anything, Sam's back was worse than his chest, worse than anything Dean had seen before on a human body, and he knew that all of this had happened because he had not rescued Sam sooner.

Yes, dammit, what happened at Freak Camp was not Dean's fault, he hadn't held the knife, brand, whip or whatever the hell had left those ugly little starbursts. Probably most of this damage had happened long before Dean had his license, before it had even seriously occurred to him to get Sam out. But he knew he could have done  _something_  if he had gotten his head out of his ass long enough to actually see what was going on around him. He should have paid more attention. Fuck, he had known since the day he saw that damn smiley face scar on Sam's forearm that he was being hurt. He had probably been hurt  _every fucking day_ , but had Dean done anything to stop that? Had he done any damn thing to stop those bastards other than branding one of their sadistic, sneering faces? And even that largely symbolic action had been motivated more by rage than any thought of helping Sam.

He had failed Sam again and again. And the worst part was that Sam didn't expect—had never expected—anything better of him than he had of the bastards who carved their marks into his skin.

~

Sam held as still as he could in Dean's arms, shivery face pressed against Dean's shirt, and wished he knew what the fuck was going on.

Because Dean wasn't angry, not that Sam could see, not that he could tell through the way the world was going in and out of focus. He seemed more concerned, and he was  _holding_  Sam like he hadn't in days and telling him he had to go to bed, and Sam didn't understand any of it. He had always know that Dean was better, kinder than the guards, that he would never hurt him unless Sam deserved it— _What if he did hurt you? Wouldn't it be a relief to know what would finally push him over the edge? Wouldn't it be a relief to be treated a fraction like you deserve?_ —but he still couldn't understand Dean  _holding_ him while he was coughing into his shirt and sickness burned out of him.

And then Dean started taking his shirt off, and all Sam could think was  _oh God, finally?_

But why now? Why when Sam was so feverish that he couldn't concentrate on anything, could barely bring Dean's eyes into focus, but he could feel Dean's hands on his chest, opening his shirt? He could feel Dean's reaction to the contact of skin against skin, and he closed his eyes and tried to breathe as deeply and as evenly as possible, fighting down another cough that threatened to close his throat and rattle him in Dean's arms.

He couldn't think straight, couldn't make sense of his environment, but he tried to brace himself nonetheless. He couldn't wrap his head around why Dean would get off on him being sick, being almost unable to draw a breath. But if it were true, he wished he had known it earlier.  _I could have faked this_ , he thought.  _I could have done this for you, if I had just fucking known_.

Then Dean found a scar, and followed it with his fingers, and Sam felt him tense, felt his interest change. The hand moving around his chest, sliding the shirt off his back and turning Sam's body, never became violent, but Sam knew Dean wasn't happy anymore. One quick glance at his face confirmed all Sam's worst fears again. Rage, disgust, horror.

 _Oh shit,_  Sam thought,  _he doesn't like scars_. He had to fight down a bubble of hysteria, something that rose up from his gut and threatened to choke him more thoroughly than the coughs.  _Well, I'm fucking screwed then._

But even while he fought that burst of delirium, a part of himself that he had tried to break a long time ago—the part that  _wanted_  things—was whimpering and whining in the back of his mind, a place he could force himself to ignore at almost any time except when he was wrapped in Dean's arms. _I can't change that anymore_ , Sam thought.  _I tried not to get caught, I tried not to get beaten, but I couldn't...I couldn't stop them. What did you expect me to do?_

Something, clearly. Dean hated the scars. Would shove him away any second.

There had to be something worse than Dean pushing him away. Being sick and alone had been Sam's best option earlier, but now it seemed the worst, worse than death, worse than Freak Camp.

The rational part of Sam's mind knew that wasn't true. There was nothing worse than Freak Camp, and nothing safer than death. But Dean leaving him now...what would be the point of getting healthy if Dean hated the scars, would never look at him without disgust because of them? 

 _I've done so much worse, Dean,_ Sam thought. _So many better reasons for you to hate me._

Eventually Dean's hands running gently up and down his back stopped, and he rested his head on Sam's shoulder.

 _This is it_ , Sam thought.  _Go ahead, Dean, just leave me._

"You need to rest," Dean said at last. There was something wrong with his voice, something tight and choked, and Sam shivered for a reason other than fever. Dean couldn't be getting sick, not this fast, but he sounded like he felt as queasy and weak as Sam. But his arms around Sam's shoulders never loosened, and Sam couldn't hear anything wrong in Dean's lungs. He would be able to, with his ear pressed so close to Dean's chest. "Lie back."

Dean started to push him away, push him down, and Sam rallied the remainder of his resources to grab at his arm, hold his shirt. "Dean," he rasped. But that was as far as he got before his chest clenched and anything he tried to say dissolved in coughing.

Distantly, he felt Dean pushing him down on the bed, reaching for his pants. Sam tensed and tried to turn himself, tried to help Dean as much as he could, even though the room was spinning and he couldn't separate the feel of Dean's hands from the feel of his back on the bed and the pressure of his clenched fists.

One second he was lying under Dean, wondering if he was hallucinating, fantasizing about being claimed, really being taken by the only person in the world he had ever wanted, and the next Dean was pulling a pair of sweatpants into place over his hips and working a shirt over his head.

Sam gasped, bucked a little, struggling for breath, and Dean put a hand on his chest. "Shhh," he said, and tugged the shirt the rest of the way down. He reached to the side table for a steaming mug, fit his other arm under Sam's back to lift him into a sitting position halfway up, and gently brought the mug to his lips. "Come on, Sammy, drink."

Sam did as he was told, even as his stomach twisted on itself and he couldn't quite swallow properly. Dean had him take a small sip and then waited patiently while he forced it down. Oh God, what if he threw up on Dean?

Sam forced himself not even to think about that. He couldn't. Instead, he concentrated on the astonishing feel of Dean's arm supporting him, the rim of the cup against his lips, the warm liquid moving down his throat. About three swallows down, he realized that he was hungry, and thirsty, and that he was still shaking but didn't feel quite so damn cold. He looked down and saw a couple water-filled soda bottles packed around his legs. Those were the sources of warmth. He had thought that it was just a normal reaction to having Dean still be there.

He had no idea how much time he had lost. He didn't know what had happened. But he didn't think it had been what he had expected. He didn't think Dean had taken him. And yet, inexplicably, Dean was still there, feeding him soup and wrapping him with warmth and gentleness. It was so wrong. If a monster was sick, he didn't deserve to be put in a warm bed in clean clothes, bundled with hot water bottles and... _touched_. He deserved nothing. Healthy, he was damn near useless, but  _sick_ he was a burden, nothing but a dead weight.

It was wrong to have Dean still beside him. So wrong and so wonderful. He couldn't imagine anything better. There was nothing better.

When Dean took the mug away, Sam couldn't stop himself from smiling, couldn't hold back the happiness, even though that might make Dean angry, might make him think that Sam didn't know what a  _fucking useless burden_ he was. But Dean looked slightly relieved when he saw Sam's smile, even smiled a little back at him, which made Sam feel loopier than the rest of the illness combined.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean said. His voice still sounded wrong, but Sam reassured himself that Dean didn't really look sick. He just looked  _sad_. He reached over and pulled the covers up to Sam's chest, pulling away the towel he had put under his chin as a makeshift bib. "You're really sick. You need to sleep, okay?"

Sam nodded. He took a breath, and managed to exhale without coughing. He settled into the covers and closed his eyes, but snapped them open again when he felt Dean get up from the bed.

"Don't go." Now why the hell had he said that? Dean was helping him, Dean hadn't thrown him to the curb yet and here he was fucking it up, being a needy, useless monster, so much more trouble than he was worth. He'd even involuntarily reached for Dean, fucking  _reached_ for him when he was sick and sad and wanted more than anything for Dean to stay.

It seemed like a stupid, foolhardy thing to say, but the look on Dean's face—surprise, hope, unnameable things, and a slow touch of wonder—said it hadn't been stupid at all, that it had been exactly right. He came back.

Sam still closed his eyes when Dean settled back on the bed and reached for his face. Dean didn't like it when he flinched, and if Sam saw the touch coming he wouldn't be able to stop himself, not when hands in the past had ground against his eyes, his nose, forced hard gags into his mouth and applied knives and hot rods close enough to his face that it would hurt like hell, but not so high that it would leave marks where the guards had to look at him every day.

But all the hand did was rest on his hair, and then slowly, softly, begin stroking downward, back from his forehead and down toward his neck, over and over again. Sam's eyes flickered open briefly, and then closed, afraid to look, afraid to do anything that would make Dean stop.

"I'm here, Sam," Dean said. "I'm here and I'm not going anywhere. Time to sleep. Just relax, Sam, I won't let them hurt you ever again."

Sam tried to keep awake, tried to savor the contact. Who knew when something this good would happen to him again, or how long Dean would stay? 

But he couldn't stop sleep, couldn't fight it when his body was exhausted and shaking for rest and healing. He drifted in spite of himself, drawn by the steady, soft press of Dean's hand over his feverish skin, into his first deep, dreamless sleep in days.

~*~

The next morning, Sam managed to drink some of the broth Dean gave him, but that night when Dean tried to give him mushroom soup ( _“Sorry, Sam, this is what we’ve got left. I’ll hit the store later, get you some chicken broth_ ”), he couldn’t hold it down.

He made it as far as the bathroom—tile, he could scrub tile, couldn’t get the stains out of carpet—before he was on his knees, vomiting into the wastebasket. He flinched when Dean touched him— _please don’t hit me, I don’t want to throw up on you_ —but Dean just wrapped his hands around Sam's arms and pulled him over to the toilet. Sam felt a dull moment of dread when Dean opened the seat and pushed his head toward the bowl, but Dean stopped well before Sam’s face was anywhere near the water. Then Dean let go of his head, crouched next to him and rubbed Sam's back while he shook.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “You’re gonna be okay, Sammy.”

But Dean didn't sound okay. He sounded like he had a nail in his hand and it hurt every time Sam shook.

“You shouldn’t—“ Sam blurted out, then had to stop while another wave of nausea rose from his gut. The aftershocks made him close his eyes, left him close to sobbing. “You s-shouldn’t t-touch me,” he gasped.

Dean’s hand on his shoulder froze. “Sam, I’m sorry. Did I…?”

“I’m f-filthy, contagious. I’m disgusting. I’m sorry sorry sorry, so sorry. P-please don’t get sick. Don’t l-let me make you s-sick.”

~

“God! Sam!” Dean stared, horrified, then put his hands on Sam’s shoulders. When he tried to move him, for a second Sam clung to the toilet bowl as though he was drowning and the white porcelain was his only lifesaver. Dean could  _see_  the act of will it took for Sam to release his hold and let Dean pull him away.

Dean maneuvered Sam until he was cradled against Dean’s chest, Dean's hand on his shoulder, brushing his fingers through his sweaty hair. Sam turned his head far to the side so his mouth wasn’t touching Dean’s shirt, and in the part of him that wasn't just trying to  _deal_ , that hurt. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” He wondered if Sam heard—and believed—a word he said.

When the shaking eased up and he thought Sam could sit unsupported, Dean got him a glass of water and a damp washcloth to wipe the bile and sweat from his face. Sam looked horrible, pale, shaky, and devastated, but the expression of near-adoration on his face while Dean cleaned the tearstains from his cheeks made him downright uncomfortable. It wasn't like he was doing much. Cleaning Sam, bringing him some water, when he'd damn near poisoned him with that fucking Campbell's soup, was the least he could do. It shouldn't have been that special when Dean was pretty sure that he was screwing up somewhere.

Sam was calmer after the water and the washcloth. After eight or ten minutes, when he seemed less likely to lose the little liquid he had left in his stomach, Dean helped him up to splash his face one more time, and then they stumbled back to Sam's bedroom like a couple of drunks heading home at two a.m..

Dean got Sam a wastebasket for next to the bed—his sprint for the bathroom had been one of the most terrifying things Dean had seen recently, after Sam's scars, that shitty goat coffeeshop, and Sam falling down a flight of stairs—and tried to make him more comfortable. The shaking had worsened again after just that short walk.

Dean sat on the side of the bed, adjusted the blankets, rubbed at a speck of soup that had been flung onto the headboard, and generally tried to feel useful in the face of Sam sick and shaking, teeth chattering. His hand fluttered over Sam's forehead again and again, smoothing his hair uselessly, feeling the damp hair already hot and sticky from sweat. "Shit, Sam. You're...really sick." He could say that with absolute certainty, and that was when Sam was still and too quiet. When he coughed...fuck, it sounded like he was going to lose a lung. "I think...fuck, I hate hospitals, but I should probably take you to a clinic or something, get a doctor to check—"

"No!" Sam fought his way into a sitting position, back braced against the headboard, eyes as wide with horror as Dean had ever seen them. "No, Dean, no, please. It's only been a d-day, please g-g-give me at least one more, please please, I'll get b-better—"

"Sam." Dean grabbed his shoulders and tried to get him to lie down again without shoving. "Look, it'll be okay—I'd  _never_ let them hurt you, I swear, I'll be there the whole time. They're just gonna see how sick you are and get you a prescription or something."

Dean thought he was being reasonable. He thought that he wasn't panicking or anything, he just didn't want Sam to die, but Sam had seized Dean's sleeve, and his eyes and cheeks were bright with fear as well as fever. “D-don’t, Dean,  _please_ , please, I swear I’m not that sick, I d-don’t need to go, please don’t take me...” He couldn’t finish, curling over his knees with another fit of coughing that racked his body. Dean could see the outline of Sam's bones through his rumpled nightshirt: vertebrae, rib, and clavicle with hardly anything in between, bound together by taut skin. The stark digits tattooed across his collarbone only made his skin look paler, nearly transparent. Dean swallowed hard against the terrible conviction that Sam couldn’t sustain this wrecking illness, had no reserves or resources.  _He survived eleven years of Freak Camp, I won’t lose him now to the flu_. If it even _was_ the flu. Shit, all his medical knowledge lay in stitches and blood loss and concussions. He couldn’t fucking gamble with Sam’s life, not an inch.

"They're not going to hurt you. You gotta trust me. I won't let anyone hurt you, swear to God, Sammy." Dean was going to take him. He  _had_ to get help, and this wasn't some fucked-up thing between him and Sam but fever, sweat, and vomit, and he could ask for help for this, and get it, without feeling like a failure. 

He was about a half a minute from carrying Sam straight to the Impala and finding the nearest emergency room, when Sam looked up at him, lips trembling, eyes wide, anguished and desperately lost. “P-please,” he whispered. “Th-they’ll  _know_.”

That hit Dean straight in the solar plexus, and it was his turn to lean forward, trying to breathe at the pain in Sam's voice, at the lack of any kind of hope. And, yeah, maybe it was time and past that Sam lost faith in him— _nothing but a fuck-up, Winchester_ —but only years of fighting things that made other people's nightmares, kept his voice steady as he squeezed Sam's shoulder and looked him in the eye. “They can’t take you away from me, Sam. They  _can’t_. I'll never let them."

Sam stared at him wordlessly, then clenched his eyes shut once more and turned away as much as he could while his limbs seemed too heavy for his waning strength to move.

Dean should have still brought him to the hospital, gotten a doctor to fix him, called  _someone_ who would know what kind of drugs would bring the fever down or if any of the stores in the area would deliver broth to their door. But somehow the hopelessness he had seen in Sam's eyes drained him of all that energy, all that hope. He doubted his own conviction that the hospital would make this better, would make Sam well again. So instead of dragging him out to the Impala, Dean tucked the blankets tight around Sam's shivering body and wished he could do more. He was half-ready to climb into bed with Sam if that would stop the shivering, but that was off limits for fucking sure. So he did the only thing he could think to do when hospitals, holding, and hope were off limits. 

"You need broth and stuff," Dean said, standing. Sam turned to look at him, blurrily. "I'm going to run to the store. Don't...don't die on me, Sam."

Sam's eyes widened. Dean could see the spike of panic. "You're—" He had to break off for a coughing fit. Not one of the worst ones, but not good, either. Dean waited. "You're coming b-back?"

"Half an hour. Tops. I promise. We just need some stuff."  _You need some stuff that I can't give, but I'll buy other stuff for you anyway._

Sam nodded. "I'm s-sorry," he said in a small voice. "So sorry."

Dean couldn't respond to that. Didn't trust his voice not to break. He almost thought he would feel better if he were in some kind of physical pain instead of in whatever the hell kind of pain he was in. Instead, he left.

As the door closed on his heels and he locked it, automatically, it occurred to him that he'd been doing a lot of leaving lately. And despite how he knew that Sam had no one else, and was near-hopeless without him right now, he couldn't shake the thought that maybe that was for the best.

The local all-night supermarket wasn’t that far away, and Dean cut minutes off the usual time. Yeah, he was speeding. Yeah, it was eleven p.m. on a Monday and no one was around.

He parked the Impala messily close to the front and ran in. The night staff glanced at him and then away, unconcerned.

Not until he was standing in the middle of the soup aisle with his arms full of things—white bread, Nyquil, kleenex—that Dean realized again that he didn't have the first fucking idea what he should be doing. 

He couldn't even think back to when he had been sick because Winchesters didn't get sick.

Okay, not quite true, but he hadn't really gotten sick as a kid, and when he had, John had just...

Fuck it, sometimes John had just been there, and times like that he wasn't fucking  _John_ , he was  _Dad_ , and Dad had been perfect. Like he always knew how to figure out the focus-object for a ghost, or how to sneak up on a swamp monster, he just  _knew_ how to make Dean feel better. He had been there, with nasty cough syrup and hamburgers and the conviction that because Dean had always followed his orders, and the order this time was "Get your strength up, Dean," he would obey this time, too. When John had said, "You'll be fine, Dean," it wasn't a reassurance or a platitude, it was an order and the  _truth_ , and Dean knew it would be true just because his dad was saying it.

Other times John hadn't been there, and Dean had just curled up on whatever bed, cot, mattress, or couch there was in their latest hotel, apartment, condo, hovel, or cabin, and slept until he could breathe again. 

But now Dean was all that Sam had, and he couldn't waste time having some kind of chick-flick existential crisis in the middle of the grocery store when Sam fucking  _needed_ him. 

Dean bought six things of the wateriest chicken noodle soup he could find and some cough syrup. He had to shove the last one in his pocket, and the late-night cashier glared at him at checkout, probably convinced he was shoplifting whole turkeys in some pocket yet untapped. She asked him whether he wanted paper or plastic and it didn't sound like an offer, so he bagged his purchases himself and hurried out.

Carrying the stupid plastic bag was easier than holding everything in his arms. Dean couldn't count the disasters that could have happened to Sam while he was gone (falling out of bed, slamming his head on the wall, fever spiking, choking on vomit, just  _dead_ ), but he tried not to think of them as he sped all the way home. Probably it was dangerous the way the road was blurring in front of him, swamped in images of Sam shivering, Sam coughing, Sam dead, but he didn't fucking care, he had to  _get_ there and stop it, everything that was rapidly becoming his worst fear.

It was a kind of panic, clogging his veins, making his heart beat far too fast for the short trip from the grocery store to the condo, and Dean thought that it would burn through him until he could see Sam safe again.

Then he brought the Impala to a stop in its spot in the parking lot, and he realized that now, in order to be sure that Sam was safe, he had to actually go in there. And suddenly it was hard to put his hand on the handle and get out of the car. 

Dean leaned his head on the steering wheel and took in one deep breath after another, trying to get a grip on himself. He had to leave the safe shell of the Impala, he had to walk up those stairs with his stupid little cans of soup and help Sam because without him he didn't know how Sam was going to get through this. Granted, he wasn't sure how Sam was going to get through it even  _with_ him, but Dean was the best option he had. Even though Dean didn't know if he could hold it together long enough to help Sam, to make him well. Not when every time Sam flinched away from him, it just drove home harder and harder the fact that Sam had no reason to trust him, and Dean was fucking this whole thing up, and how could he fix that? How could he survive  _not_ fixing that?

A huge part of Dean could not bear to go back inside to face Sam's fear with the knowledge that at least part of that terror was completely justified. But, eventually, the rest of him—the part convinced Sam could die any second, the part that couldn't just walk away—got him out of the Impala, up those stairs, and through the door to where Sam, and all he meant, waited for him.

~*~ 

The following afternoon, Dean sat on the side of Sam's bed and pushed a few damp hairs off his forehead. 

Sam had been sleeping most of the day, after drinking another mug of broth that morning for breakfast. Dean figured that was good, even though Sam’s temperature was still pretty high. Dean worried, but at least Sam hadn’t been coughing as badly (though maybe that was normal, seeing as he'd been sleeping almost constantly), and he hadn’t vomited in nearly twenty-four hours.

Dean had tried to research Sam's symptoms online—it worked for mutant spider bites after all, so it  _had_ to have some answers about whatever the hell Sam had—but ended up cracking and calling the local doctor’s clinic, just to see if he could get some general advice and an idea if this was serious or not. The nurse he spoke to was pretty nice—didn’t ask any invasive questions that pinged his hunter radar, though she urged him to bring Sam in. But she’d said it sounded like a run-of-the-mill viral infection that should run its course in a few days, and Dean should only worry if the fever spiked or continued for more than forty-eight hours. Dean thanked her, hung up, and tried to feel relieved. He’d gotten a professional opinion, after all. He tried not to think how the nurse had no idea Sam had been a FREACS inmate for most of his life. If this was something he had caught there, it might not be a "run-of-the mill virus." And if he'd contracted the cough after they left, there was no guaranteeing that his skin-on-bones frame could fight it off.

So Dean had gone back to his vigil at Sam's bedside, watching him toss and turn and take labored, gasping breaths. He wasn’t sleeping easily, but Dean hoped what little rest Sam got would bring him back to health all the sooner.

He wiped Sam’s forehead again with a cool washcloth, then sighed and reached for the thermometer on Sam’s bedside table, next to the wide array of medicine he'd set out, Sam's two full water glasses, and a couple dishes of broth that Sam hadn't eaten. He’d been judging Sam’s fever roughly by the heat radiating from his forehead, but that wasn’t really accurate anymore, not if Dean had to be watching for spikes and couldn't rely on his own nerves to judge what was _too hot_.

“Hey Sammy,” he said, brushing his thumb next to Sam’s mouth. “I need you to open up for me. Just for a sec.”

Sam moaned, twisting over with his eyes screwed shut, but Dean persisted. Eventually his coaxing opened Sam's mouth enough to slip the thermometer between his lips. He didn’t like how still Sam went the second the cold instrument touched his tongue, as though the thermometer held him immobile. Resting his hand on Sam’s neck, Dean could feel his rapid pulse beneath his fingertips, but couldn’t remember if it had been any slower just before.

When the thermometer beeped and Dean withdrew it—101.8, okay, that was a start of a decline—Sam’s lips parted, and he panted desperately before rolling onto his face with a heartbreaking, agonized whimper, so wretched that Dean felt it physically go through him like a wendigo’s claws.

“Hey, hey Sammy,” he said, leaning close and rubbing his back. “You okay? Something hurt? Talk to me, man.”

Sam didn’t answer. His hands were scrabbling uselessly at the sheets, and his breath was even more labored. It sounded almost like he was on the edge of another collapse.

Repeating Sam's name, a litany as desperate and earnest as an exorcism (and not helping,  _fuck_ , Sam wasn't responding at all), Dean maneuvered Sam onto his side so he wasn't mashing his face into the pillow, giving him room to breathe, room to move, maybe just so he could be  _doing_ something while Sam—still mostly unconscious and feverish—panicked right in front of him for reasons he didn't understand.

Sam sobbed, a broken and hopeless sound, and shrank away from Dean's touch, drawing his arms and knees to his chest in a ball. “No, no,  _please_ , Dean—please don’t—I’m sorry, I’ll be better, just please  _don’t_ —”

It took maybe a second for the words to sink in, and then Dean bolted from the room so fast he was surprised that he hadn't flung the door off its hinges. He made it to the wall outside the second bathroom, the one Sam had been using when he had the strength to hobble out to pee or empty out his stomach, not sure if he was going to need the toilet, too. His stomach was roiling, his hands shook, and he could still hear faintly Sam's sickening pleas drifting out from the bedroom. He sounded afraid and despairing, utterly without hope that Dean would listen, that Dean would be any different from the bastards who had broken something inside him and cut their marks into his skin.

Dean had wanted to believe that Sam knew he wasn't like those sonsofbitches. He had tried to convince himself that Sam wasn't afraid of him in addition to his general fear of reals and asking for things and looking him in the eye, and Sam would never had said otherwise, because he was so desperate to please that he wouldn't have said a single thing to upset Dean.

But that nightmare—fuck, Dean hoped that it was a nightmare; he couldn't contemplate that horror in Sam's voice being part of his regular dreams—proved that Sam wasn't just afraid of Dean, but utterly horrifyingly  _terrified_.

If Dean could have, he would have walked out right then. He would have left because Sam was so clearly wrecked by his mere presence, and every time Dean looked at Sam with that knowledge, it would hurt like a wicked bitch. He would go,  _willingly_ , if it would make life that little bit easier for Sam. 

But he couldn't. Because Sam was feverish, half-starved, and sick, and Dean was the only one there. Even though that scared him shitless more than anything else that had come before in these three fucking roller-coaster weeks. He couldn't leave, because Sam needed him, even if he would never ever want or trust him.

Dean swallowed, painfully, until he was pretty sure he wouldn't have to barf out his stomach when he stepped back in that room and had to hear Sam's whimpering with perfect, painful clarity.

Then he walked back into his own personal hell. Because it had to be done, and he was the only one who would.

~*~

Sam's fever broke that evening, and Dean knew that he was relieved. He had to be relieved. But honestly, what he really felt was numb.

The next morning, Sam felt well enough that he asked to sit in the living room (a weirdly precise request, among the thousands of things Sam wouldn't ask for—like more water when his glass was empty—but it seemed strangely important to him to get out of his bedroom). Dean moved him, then opened the balcony door and window, threw Sam’s sheets into the wash, and cleaned to the best of his ability, trying to get the smell of sweat and sickness out of the walls, though they were probably more in his head than anywhere else.

He tried to stay out of Sam’s sight as much as possible. It was better that way, for both of them. If Sam wasn’t confronted with Dean every moment, he couldn’t be terrified of him, couldn’t fear him as much, right? And Dean wouldn’t have to look at Sam’s face and see the fear lying just beneath the surface.

He had scared people before, but those had been civilians, and he was a hunter. He’d been interacting with them to do a job, and it hadn’t mattered what they thought of him when he blew out of town.

Sam mattered. His was the life Dean had wanted to save more than for any hunt he had ever been on, but he couldn’t worry about that, couldn’t realize how much he was failing because he  _still_ had a job to do, and realizing how he was fucking up the bigger picture could only distract him right now from feeding Sam, getting him healthy, and maybe giving him enough confidence to survive on his own. Because Dean sure didn’t see any way they were going to manage to stay together. 

The plan was working (do the job, get out, don’t get attached) until Dean was cleaning up from a meal that he had made for Sam (more broth, beef this time) and hadn’t bothered to eat, himself. Sam pushed himself up on the couch as much as possible—Dean was watching, even though he was in the kitchen, even though it was probably creeping Sam out  _more_ that he was keeping an eye on him—and he looked so hopeful, like he  _wanted_ to ask something, that Dean had to step out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. Maybe this time Sam would tell him what he needed. Even a hint would be nice.

“Yeah, Sam?”

“Dean?” Sam looked down, then looked up again. “Are you…are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Fucking fine. You need anything?”

Sam started to shake his head, and then the motion twisted on itself until it was like a shrug-nod, or maybe just a shudder. “I feel good, Dean, really good, but you’re…did I…?”

“Did you what, Sam?”

Sam took a deep breath, closing and opening his eyes, even while they remained fixed on the carpet. “Did I d-do something wrong, please tell me, Dean, I can be better—“

The words made the bile rise in Dean’s throat, and he almost wanted to turn around now, walk away, before Sam could plead with him, before that broken tone could re-emerge in his voice. But something stopped him. Something perilously, fatally like hope. Maybe he could make this work. Maybe he could just ask and get what Sam needed, learn what he needed, and Sam wouldn’t shake and cringe and beg, and he would be okay.

That was all Dean wanted. Everything Dean wanted. So he crossed the living room and sat on the coffee table. Sam looked up, and Dean could see him swallow from the effort that took him.

“You’re afraid of me, Sam,” he said, looking him in the eye, even as Sam cringed slightly in response. “Every day, you’re afraid of me, of what I’ll do. No, don’t shake your head, I’m not  _stupid_ , and the way you flinch away from me is…yeah, well, it’s pretty clear. But if you meant it, Sam, if you really want to help  _us_ , you need to…I want you to...tell me. Tell me how to make this better for you, tell me how to” — _make you stop being afraid of me with every breath_ — "help you. What will make this easier for you, Sam?” Dean forced a small smile. It hurt a little, but was worth it when he saw Sam relax fractionally.

He didn’t expect Sam to answer—yeah, he hoped, but he had learned better than to believe—but after a moment, Sam inhaled shakily.

“You…you could…” He stopped, shoulders tense, eyes on his knees. His hands clenched once, twice, and then flexed out until Dean could almost hear the knuckles cracking.

Dean held his breath. He hadn’t dared to expect a real answer, but maybe the direct approach was finally going to fucking work. “What?” he whispered. “Just tell me, Sam, anything.”

~

Dean had been acting strangely the entire day, and Sam was afraid, with a different kind of fear that the sickness had brought him. Dean had been there the whole time, bringing him soup, wiping his brow, changing his clothes, and generally giving him the best care imaginable. But now that Sam was feeling better, now that he was  _useful_ again, it was like all Dean’s drive and attention had been used up. He hadn’t left the apartment, even for a run or a drink, but everything that made Dean  _Dean_  had been absent as well.

Part of Sam knew he should be glad that Dean had finally realized he shouldn't be near or touch a freak. Dean was safer that way, and Sam should be glad. But Sam couldn't help the growing, selfish, monstrous worry that he had done something wrong and driven Dean away during a time when he couldn’t control himself. He worried more each hour that Dean would get tired of this burden and this weakness. He worried about Freak Camp. He worried about what he could do to make Dean touch him again.

And now Dean was asking what  _he_ could do to make this easier, telling him in so many words that he didn’t _want_ Sam to be afraid, didn’t want him cringing, and Sam could try, but there was one thing, one precious promise that Dean could give him that would maybe wipe away the deepest fear in Sam’s mind, one he had had nightmares about all through his sickness. And maybe, with that fear gone, he could do better at conquering all the little terrors.

Sam drew in another deep breath and tried to convince himself it wasn't much to ask. Just one bullet. The same Dean would give any monster.

"You could—you could p-promise me," he tried again, and found the courage, somewhere, to put his greatest need into words. The greatest need, at least, that he thought he could somehow actually receive. "That you'll n-never...that you'll put me down yourself...rather than r-return me to F-Freak Camp."

Sam knew he should let Dean think through the reasoning—Dean was a hunter and a real and so much smarter than himself—but when he didn't answer, when not even his hold on Sam's shoulders changed, Sam couldn't stop his mouth. He almost wished for the closed throat of the cough because, now that he had started, all his bottled worries were forcing their way out of him in a painful, dangerous rush. He didn't look up, too terrified to see Dean's face. "I kn-know you t-told me you w-wouldn't, you p-promised, I kn-know but you d-d-don't know..." _what a fucked-up piece of shit I am_ , "...you haven't," _fucked me, used me, found any use for me_ ," you could change your mind, still, and you don't know how..."  _I always fuck up eventually because that's what monsters do_. "It would h-help, Dean, just to hear you s-say it again, to know you'd give m-me a bullet before..."  _they have a chance to take away everything I ever wanted only for you_. 

~

Dean felt something in his chest snap—maybe that was his heart, it certainly seemed to be beating louder than usual—but it wasn't a new pain. Not one that would kill him. 

He hated that Sam had asked that. He had told Sam he would never bring him back to Freak Camp, and he had meant it. He would crash the Impala, make deals with demons, and light the state on fire before he ever let Sam walk back through those doors, and he wished like hell that he had the words to wipe away the fear he could see in Sam's eyes, even when they remained fixed on his hands, as far from Dean's face as he could get. Or rather, he wished he had different words. Because in that moment, he finally realized that Sam meant it. Sam thought that Dean would throw him back to those sonsofbitches. He thought Dean had the capacity to shoot him. And yet he still believed that Dean's promises were good, so Dean could say something, right here and now, that could possibly drive the fear out of Sam, or at least tuck it so far inside that he wouldn't flinch every time Dean touched his hand or cringe like he expected to be hit when asking for what he needed. 

And just like that, Dean knew that he was going to say it, because it might, just might, give Sam hope. It should have been an easy promise—after all, he would never let Sam go back to Freak Camp, even if it wasn't the way he expected—but it felt like defeat. Because in that moment he admitted, to himself, if not to Sam, that he couldn't deal with this, he didn't know any way out of this downward spiral that seemed to be ripping Sam apart. He couldn't fight it, overcome it, or block it away, and he was caught right there in its depths, pulled along without a way or the will to break free. Dean had already made his decision, maybe when he was fourteen, maybe just when he looked in his father's face and knew he was walking away, but it was made and there was nowhere else for him to go. They would rise and fall together, but Dean didn't like the odds for buoyancy.

He reached over and touched Sam’s face, ignoring both Sam's automatic flinch and his own rage at seeing it. After the initial fearful reaction, Sam looked up a little, and his entire body turned toward Dean like a flower turning toward the sun or a child feeling the hand of a parent promising it will be all right.

“I promise, Sammy,” Dean said, half fervent, half heartbroken. “I would put three rounds through your heart and burn your bones before I let those bastards take you back to Freak Camp. I  _promise_.”

The relief on Sam’s face almost broke him again, the joy, the way he practically threw himself into Dean’s arms. Dean pulled him close and tucked his cheek against Sam's and felt the relaxation in him, as though a layer of tension had been stripped away, duct tape off an old wall, ripping away paint and baring the plaster. 

Dean touched Sam softly over his back, and carefully held the rest of the promise to himself. Not just the fact that he would kill anyone and anything before he put a bullet in Sam. No, the part he barely wanted to admit to himself because he wasn’t sure how Sam would take it, wasn’t sure that when he was better—if he got better, if he ever even got  _okay_ —Sam wouldn’t need him anymore, and he would just…step away, step out, leave like so many people Dean had cared about had left.

Dean wouldn’t blame him. He was an overbearing asshole sometimes, not as smart as Sam, not as kind. He was trouble and couldn’t make the right decisions. Mostly he tried to believe it wasn’t his fault that Mom had left, and mostly he managed, but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was the reason that Dad left. He could still remember the words.

He could probably survive Sam leaving him. He expected it sometimes, hoped for it others—he would have prayed if he believed anything was listening—but even knowing Sam didn’t want to stay with him would be balanced by the understanding and triumph in the knowledge that Sam could survive without him. If Sam left Dean, it would be because he had the strength to stand on his own. 

If Dean had to pull the trigger— _I never will, don’t even think of it, Dean_ —he was pretty sure he would put the gun in his own mouth as the next logical step.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a heads-up that this chapter is the second-to-last before we conclude the first fraction of Part Two. Part Two is going to be much, much longer than Part One. This first fraction (the first eleven chapters) is already close to 100,000 words, while Part One was 115,000 words. We always planned to take a hiatus after the first fraction is complete (i.e., after the next chapter after this one). I can't say how long it will be, but we will return recharged for the next large segment of Part Two.
> 
> As for this chapter: keep holding on tight, guys. Much like Part One (even though, again, we're nowhere near the end of Part Two), it has to plummet down before it can rise to end to a more hopeful, happy place. We promise to leave you in a good place before the hiatus!

Sam was relieved and amazed by how quickly his condition improved after the fever broke. For days he couldn't see straight, couldn't always tell the different between the mattress underneath and the plain white ceiling above. Only Dean had been his constant presence through the hellish nights, propping him up with pillows to feed him soup and crackers, lowering him again and brushing his hands through Sam’s hair through the long, unfocused nights and days, and never once mentioning how he shouldn’t be touching, caring for, or dealing with a filthy monster, what Sam would have to pay for this kindness or if there was any kind of punishment to be found at the end.

Sam didn’t believe there would be, honestly. And if there was, that didn’t matter because Dean had promised Sam he would never go back to Freak Camp and that was the best thing. Sam felt like he was in the safest place in the world every time Dean touched him, and every time he opened his eyes and felt the blankets over his shoulders, he knew he was in the best place he could ever be.

And it kept getting better. One night raving and sweating, sure he was going to die any second, coughing out every rebelling freak organ in his body, to a couple days later being able to wash the dishes and walk to the bathroom himself. Thursday morning he had even woken up before hearing Dean’s quiet steps in the living room.

Sam had put away the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the kitchen table and washed Dean’s glass before deciding that he didn’t want to go back to his room. The sheets were clean and the window was cracked to let in some fresh air, but Sam could still feel the days of being sick, not so much in the scent, sight, or feel—he hadn’t ever vomited onto the carpet, thank God, and Dean had never so much as slapped him, so there wasn’t any blood—but mostly by the memories of words and murky nightmares.

So he stayed in the living room, propping himself up on the couch, and started reading one of his books. Dean had seemed happy when Sam had read before, and now that he was better, he knew it was an activity that wouldn’t strain his recovering body.

In Freak Camp, he had never worried about straining himself. He had done what he had to do. But now he knew that taking care of himself was important to making Dean happy—Dean had clearly been worried and upset through the entire run of the fever, though Sam wasn’t sure why—so he would do his best. He drank a little water from the tap in the bathroom before settling down on the couch, feeling a slight tremor in his muscles, easy to ignore, but a clear sign that he could continue resting. Dean had said that he should drink a lot of water, but Sam wasn’t sure if that counted as a rule, a suggestion, or a fact, nor was he positive that implied directives extended to Sam using a glass without Dean’s permission.

When Dean shuffled out of his bedroom a couple hours later, he got all the way to the invisible line that divided the living room from the hallway before he saw Sam. He froze and blinked a couple times. Sam thought he saw him swallow, and there might have been something like relief in his face before it faded back to wariness.

“Hey, Sam.”

“Hey, Dean.” Sam’s hands were shaking slightly, now. Maybe he’d been holding the book up too long. He lowered it and tucked his hands beneath his knees. Strange, how the weakness of his body used to be a threat, something that had to be compensated for so that no other monster could take advantage, so that no one else—except Kayla—would know or they would try to stab him in the back. Now it was still a sign of his weakness, but he didn’t have to push through at the long-term expense of his endurance. He didn’t need to damage himself more so that he wouldn’t get jumped in the showers. It was like the one time he had been in the infirmary for weeks and hadn’t had to watch his back, had only had to get better so that he could keep surviving sessions with the Director. Except when he had been in the infirmary that long, he hadn’t been thinking about anything, had been surviving out of habit and the recitation of an old promise, rather than drive.

But this time was completely different. Rather than being hollowed out, he had Dean and his fulfilled and new promises. And those gave him...something very like hope. And maybe happiness.

“You’re doing better.”

Sam wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement. “Yes, Dean. Much better. Thank you.” He knew he was smiling and couldn’t quite control it, but he was pretty sure now he didn’t have to.

Dean almost smiled in return, and then tension slid back into his shoulders. “That’s good. That’s really good, Sam.” He turned and went into the kitchen. Sam leaned his head against the back of the couch and listened. Cupboard, refrigerator, pause, close refrigerator.

“Sam?”

It could all go to hell so quickly, really. Sam felt his entire body clench. Dean didn’t sound angry, didn’t sound like he was going to hit him or even yell at him, but he still didn’t sound happy. Sam braced a hand on the couch and tried to get up, to figure out what he had done wrong and fix it, but when his arm shook, he sank back into the cushions. Better not to risk it. Sam desperately wanted to do whatever Dean wanted, but he was afraid that stumbling into the kitchen would not be the way.

He hoped he didn’t sound afraid, answering. Dean didn’t like it when he was afraid. “Yes, Dean?”

“Where did you put my bottle?”

“The w-whiskey?”

Dean didn’t answer for a second. “Yeah.”

“In the second shelf from the refrigerator, where you u-usually store it.”

Sound of the cupboard opening again and a couple cans of peaches being moved. “Ah. Thanks.”

Sam waited for the sound of liquid pouring, maybe the freezer opening so Dean could get some ice, but nothing happened for a long second. Then the peach cans were shifted around again, a glass was returned, and Dean left the kitchen.

Sam smiled, expecting him to come into the living room, to sit and turn on the TV, or check his email. But all he did was walk close, put his hand against Sam’s forehead for a couple seconds, sigh in relief, and then turn away again. At the threshold of the living room, Dean stopped to say, over his shoulder, “If you want breakfast, there’s cereal or...you know, whatever, help yourself...” before he disappeared down the hall, and his bedroom door clunked shut.

Sam didn’t realize he was staring after Dean until he had to blink his eyes several times because they felt painful and dry. He rubbed at his face, and then tried to focus on the book in his lap again, but it wasn’t as easy as it had been.

~*~

There was only so much time that Dean could spend in his room before admitting to his own cowardice. As he lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling, he wondered exactly how long that was.

He thought that the situation would get better when Sam did, when he could move around on his own and Dean could give him his space again, but everything only worsened when he could walk into a room and Sam was there,  _looking_ at him, expecting things from him that he was becoming more and more convinced were impossible for Dean Winchester to provide.

Certain thoughts gnawed at him. Chief among them was worrying whether Sam really was getting better, whether the current improvement in his health was just a temporary thing. But right up there, where it maybe should have been from that first fucking night, was sex.

Dean was honest with himself: he thought about sex a lot. He was twenty, hot, and liked pretty much anything with a willing smile and a set of hips. But Sam set him off like a firework every time he smiled and ducked his head. The curve of Sam’s jaw made him want to kiss him senseless; every time Dean watched him turn the page of a book, he wondered what those fingers would feel like on his skin, if ever Sam would reach out and touch him.

But Sam didn’t reach out: he never had. Sam stood still when Dean touched him, and obeyed when Dean asked to be touched, (and kissed like he was starving for it, fuck) and, often as not, flinched when Dean touched him. Sam, who Dean wanted more than anyone he had ever met, panicked when Dean asked him if he had been hurt and dropped his pants without even a hint of interest in his dick, as though he expected Dean to bend him over a bed without giving a damn if he was into it or not.

Dean wasn’t an idiot. He could see the signs, knew that they meant Sam was pretty fucking messed up (had _been_ messed up, and one day someone was going to pay for that, he was fucking certain about that). What he didn’t know, and what circled in his head like an abandoned dog, was how much of this was his fault and only getting worse because of what Dean had done.

Sometimes he’d fucked up, there was no question about it. Kissing Sam in bed. Cornering him outside the kitchen after his shower. Getting hard undressing him—at least the fucking scars had knocked that out of him before his body could get too far ahead of his mind. Those were mistakes, and weirdly enough he could forgive himself and move on because what was done was done, and the best he could do now was pick up the pieces and try not to make the same blunders.

But what about kisses? Dammit, he could pitch a tent just thinking about Sam’s mouth, catch his breath imagining his tongue, the way his lips felt, the way he—

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Sam had seemed willing. Sam had seemed more than willing—eager, happy as he ever was, just as ecstatic about the kisses as Dean was. But how much of that was an illusion, Sam interpreting what Dean wanted and trying to give it to him? How could Dean trust himself ever again when he couldn’t know that he was interpreting Sam’s reactions the  _right_ way?

He couldn’t. He couldn’t trust himself with Sam, because everything he did was a long line of mistakes, stupidities and borderline molestations.

But he couldn’t exactly stay in his room for the rest of his life, counting the bumps in the plaster of the ceiling. So he thoughts about kisses, and wondered how many of them had been the worst thing he could have done to Sam.

~*~

It was later Thursday when Dean finally got up and dragged himself out of his room. He wandered into the kitchen first—thought about a drink, decided against it—and felt his heart sink. There was no evidence that Sam had made himself breakfast or any kind of meal since he’d seen him that morning. Granted, there might not have been: cereal took, what, a bowl and a spoon? Sam could easily have eaten and put everything away again so perfectly Dean couldn’t notice, but, then again, he could also have  _not_ eaten. Dean was beginning to suspect that if he didn’t watch Sam, if he himself had not seen him eat, drink and dress, it might not have happened at all.

Sam was still in the living room, reading. He was pale and his wrists were far too thin, still, but he looked a thousand times better than he had that weekend. Dean took a cup out of the cupboard, and Sam’s head twitched in his direction before he stopped himself and moved his head closer to the book. Sam knew he was there. No question about it.

“Hey, Sam.” Dean walked into the living room and leaned on the armrest of the couch. Sam jumped when he spoke. The expression his face when he looked up at Dean seemed like it could have been a smile if it had been given any kind of encouragement. “How are you feeling?”

“Much better, Dean.”

“You eat anything?”  _While I was wallowing in my room?_

Sam looked away. “Y-yes. C-cereal.”

Dean felt something in him relax. Probably Sam should have been eating every couple of hours, given how much energy his body had to be expending to get healthy, but at least he had eaten. That felt like progress.

“Probably supper time by now, though. What do you think of spaghetti?”

Sam closed the book quickly and straightened. Dean moved off the arm of the couch when it looked like Sam would get close enough to touch him. Sam didn’t need any of that shit.

Briefly, Sam looked lost, staring at Dean’s face like he had forgotten why he put down his book. Then his eyes dropped to his hands, which wrapped around each other. “Can I help?”

Honestly, having Sam with him in the kitchen, close enough to touch, bump into, feel his breath on his skin, sounded wonderful and was one of the last things that Dean wanted. But looked at the hesitant, fragile look in his face, Dean couldn’t tell Sam no. He didn’t have a good reason to say it, either. After all, it wasn’t Sam’s fault if Dean didn’t want to keep it in his pants.

“Yeah,” he said, trying to sound enthusiastic and failing grandly, “that sounds great.”

Making the pasta with Sam was as good and horrible as Dean had suspected. It was an easy meal—boil spaghetti, heat a jar of pasta sauce, zap vegetables in the microwave—but it felt like every time he turned around, Sam was there, looking up at him, smiling up at him, his body and hands too close, his expression always this side of afraid, inches away from the panic Dean had seen again and again. Panic he had caused because he couldn’t stop feeling things he shouldn’t. Dean filled the pot and cracked the spaghetti in half, got a bag of peas out of the freezer, and couldn’t think of anything to say, even when Sam’s eyes followed him and he wanted to smile, wanted to talk about some random tangent, but what was the point? Wasn’t that too dangerous when anything he talked about could turn into something that would rip Sam apart? So he kept silent and ignored the way Sam opened his mouth sometimes, as though he wanted to talk but couldn’t. Or maybe he just saw the same problem, had nothing to say to Dean, didn’t know what he could do.

And Dean was pretty sure that was his fault, too, this feeling growing in his chest again that he couldn’t do anything right, a deep, slow self-revulsion every time he caught himself watching Sam’s hand while he stirred the spaghetti (so carefully that it could almost qualify as paranoia) or when he reached over to help Sam with the can opener for the sauce—his hands were shaking again, but whether that was the sickness or fear, Dean couldn’t tell. When Dean’s hands closed around Sam’s, he couldn’t help feeling how his fingers twitched under his, and the soft heat of his body touching Dean’s.

That was enough, too much. Dean jerked away from Sam, emptied the can into a sauce pan and set the burner on low. The pasta was already done, but Dean couldn’t stay until everything else was done, couldn’t sit down to a meal with Sam right now, thinking about these things, and contain the churning hopelessness.

Dean dumped the pasta and boiling water in the strainer and tried to bolt out of the kitchen but Sam was there, Sam was right there and Dean couldn't be in the same room that much longer.

“I’m gonna shower,” Dean said in a rush. “Be back in ten, fifteen minutes. Can you watch the sauce and maybe zap the peas?”

If anything, Sam’s face got paler, but Dean couldn’t decide if that was from the suggestion that he microwave something all by himself or because he’d been exerting himself too much. “Yes, Dean.”

“Yeah. Good, I’ll...I’ll be back.” Dean almost touched Sam’s face before he left. His hand had lifted to his cheek. But he stopped himself at the last minute and rushed out of the kitchen.

He showered. Technically. He turned the water as hot as he could stand, braced against the tile wall and grabbed his half-hard dick in his hand. He jerked himself hard and fast, letting himself think about Sam, letting himself think about how sick he was and how he didn’t deserve any of it, any of those smiles, any of anything or anyone. He didn’t fucking deserve it and he wouldn’t get it and the best he would ever get was the burn of his own hand and the cold tile against his forehead and the hot loathing that he could only direct through his hand because there was no other target.

It was fast. That much at least he had told Sam, and he could give him. Dean stepped out of the shower feeling almost dirtier than when he had gotten in, scrubbed at his face hard with the towel, and dressed. He and Sam needed to eat—though even the prospect of food was like lead shot in his stomach—and he couldn’t let his own weakness, inadequacy, and failure of self-control hurt Sam in any way. At least, no more than it already had.

Dean was holding it together. He wasn’t happy—about as far from it as a man could get short of being splayed out on the floor bleeding—but he was still moving.

And then he walked into the kitchen, damp hair dripping slightly onto his shirt, and found Sam on his hands and knees, carefully picking frozen peas off the tiles. He had a bowl cradled in his arms—like a woman might hold a baby who could start crying any second—and one by one, piled the peas in the bowl.

Dean’s first reaction was a kind of sick amusement and gratitude that it hadn’t been the bubbling tomato sauce or the hot pasta. He didn’t really like peas, but he had a vague idea that they were good for something health-wise and therefore Sam could probably use as many as he could get, but if they weren’t included in the meal, no harm no foul. At least Dean could still get some carbs into him.

Then Sam glanced up and turned as pale as the white porcelain bowl. He dropped his eyes and carefully set the bowl down on the floor. Even from the doorway, Dean could tell that his hands were shaking enough that the peas were jumping around in the bowl, almost threatening to leap over the rim.

Amusement, indifference, and apathy instantly transformed into fire in his stomach. Dean didn’t know what this was, what the fuck this was again, but he couldn’t deal with it. He didn’t want to face this fucking thing  _again_. The cowardly, honest, angry,  _hurt_ part of him—the part that kept saying that Sam had never actually liked him, or thought he was any kind of friend, Dean had just been the best option in the sea of sadistic bastards—wanted him to turn back around and slam the door on his bedroom. Who gave a damn if Sam crumpled in on himself, blank-faced, hopeless, purposeless? Who gave a fuck if Sam had issues that Dean hadn’t even dreamed existed, and might do anything—up to and including hurt himself—if Dean wasn’t there?

Dean didn’t want to care. He didn’t want to be the only one dealing with all this shit that was suddenly the only decent thing in his life. Sam had no one but him, and he— _even now, Dad, I fucking wish you would come home some day, like you used to, you always found me eventually_ —he had fucking no one else either.

So Dean stopped in the kitchen doorway. Maybe this was why Sam wouldn’t look at him, at anybody. Maybe this hopelessness, the understanding that nothing would change and nothing could get better, was what he lived with every day.

“What are you doing?” Dean asked, even though he didn’t fucking want to know. He stared at the refrigerator and waited for it.  _Go ahead, Sam_ , he thought, angry and ashamed at himself for being angry at  _Sam_ for Chrissake, _go ahead, kick me in the teeth_.

“I’m sorry,” Sam whispered. “I was p-putting the peas in the bowl, for the microwave, like you told me, exactly like you told me, but m-my hand—I’m so clumsy, I’m so stupid, but I can do better, I promise I can do better, Dean, I j-j-just…They fell, but I’m p-picking them up. I’m n-n-not wasting—“

Dean’s head snapped down. “You were going to cook food that had been on the floor?”

He added himself to the long list of things that he hated when Sam flinched away from the question like he’d been hit.

Sam looked up in horror, shook his head. “Not you, I would n-never give you...I’m s-sorry, no I would never. I just thought that maybe I…maybe you would let me…” His hands fluttered over the bowl, not sure where they could land, and Sam looked anywhere but at Dean, distress pouring off him.

He wouldn’t ever give Dean food that had been on the floor, food that was less than perfect, but he hadn’t expected anything better. He never fucking expected Dean to give him anything.

Dean walked slowly into the kitchen, and Sam slid himself onto his hands and knees, head down, tension in his back almost palpable. Dean hadn’t seen that posture in days, maybe even a week, but it still made nausea rise in his throat and his right hand clench into a fist. Other days, Dean would have crouched beside Sam, like vague memories of how his mother had reached for him. He would have told him it was all right, would have explained _again_ how Sam could eat any fucking thing he wanted, how Dean would never do that to him, how Dean wasn’t fucking much but he was better than the sorry excuses for human beings that had fucked up Sam’s life so much.

Right now, Dean couldn’t fucking do it. Couldn’t scrape up the energy, fight his way past the hatred and self-loathing to try and make Sam feel better, because it wouldn’t fucking work. It never fucking worked.

Goddamn, some days Dean wondered what the fuck Sam would do if he really did slug him, just gave him one solid hit across the jaw that carried all Dean’s anger, sadness, and horror. What the fuck would Sam do then, if Dean started doing every goddamned thing that Sam expected of him: if Dean made him live off his leftovers, or raped him every night, or hit him when life wasn’t going his way, when he was tired, or just because he wanted to?  _What the fuck would you do then, Sam?_  Dean asked himself, staring down at him.

He didn’t say it out loud. He had the sick suspicion that even if he started doing all those things—became a fucking monster like the guards and hunters of Sam’s personal living hell—Sam would trust him just as much. Maybe love him more.

He could imagine Sam, pale and calm, eating nothing while Dean ate. He could see Sam relaxing into the blows, no matter how violent, letting the force of Dean’s fists paint new bruises across his back and abdomen. And Dean could visualize himself holding Sam open while he forced his way deeper and deeper into his body, and Sam never making one fucking sound because he thought it was what Dean wanted. What a hunter wanted a hunter got in Sam’s world, and that was all Dean was, a fucking hunter, another fist, another voice, another dick. Dean could imagine himself doing all that to Sam—nausea an old friend, holding back the rage—but what he couldn’t imagine was Sam saying ‘no’.

Sam would never say no, no matter how bad it was. And Dean would never know what had gone wrong.

“Do you even fucking want to be here, Sam?” he asked. He wanted to know. He seriously wanted to know. And he didn’t think that Sam would ever tell him, unless Dean started to hit him, beat the truth, the pain, the old agony out of him.

Sam glanced up, panicked, and then away, the line of his back a tight, graceful curve of bone and sinew. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so f-f-fucking sorry, the peas just….I won’t…I promise…Anything for you, Dean, I didn’t mean...I’m sorry, s-sorry.  _Please_ , don’t—“

Dean made a sharp gesture with his hand and Sam cut himself off mid-phrase like Dean had hit him to shut him up. Maybe he should, just once, to see if being the monster Sam expected would make him love him. Because how could he fucking cringe away every day, how could he keep looking at Dean like he expected to be beaten over fucking  _spilled peas_  and not hate him, hate him so much for what Dean had been raised to be?

“This isn’t about the peas, Sam, this is about,”  _how you hate me_ , “you flinching every fucking time I come into a room. About you expecting me to be some kind of…” _monster, like you’re supposed to be,_  “sadistic fuck with a hard-on for blood. Why the fuck would you stay, Sam? Why the fuck would you  _want_ to stick around? What the fuck do I have to offer…”  _nothing_ , that’s what the fuck he had to offer, and some day Sam would figure it out, like everyone else in Dean’s life had figured out.

And it wasn’t fucking fair. Dean had burned bridges, had lost the most important things in his life, but he would lose Sam now, because he had never really had him. The Sam he had thought he knew was an illusion he constructed during brief visits in camp, a disguise Dean had created for himself so he could believe he was some kind of good person.

But he wasn’t. Sam made that perfectly clear every time he flinched.

Dean reached down and grabbed Sam hard by the arm, pulling him to his feet so Dean could look him in the eye. Dean still couldn’t quite believe that they were the same height, exactly the same.  _And why the fuck is that?_ his subconscious snarled,  _it’s because he won’t look you in the eye._

The calm, rational part of his brain had started ringing alarms and screaming about his stupidity the second he started pulling Sam toward the door, but the rest of him was so consumed by the festering, formless rage that nothing sane could be heard.

“Do you want to leave, Sam? So fucking convinced that I want to hurt you, all the fucking time, why would you stay with a sonofabitch like me?” Dean couldn’t control anything, not the words coming out of his mouth or the pressure he was exerting on Sam’s arm.

“D-d-d-dean….” Sam tried, but Dean shook him a little and he shut up.

Part of Dean liked that Sam wasn’t talking, apologizing, wasn’t begging for things that he damn well deserved to have without even asking. The rest of him knew he'd just broken himself and any relationship they might have built with that shake. He had hurt Sam to make him do what Dean wanted. Why the fuck would Sam want to stay with another hunter—what the hell could he offer to even begin making up for the years he had never gotten him out?

Dean reached the door and pulled it open, yanking the girly security chain out of the door, barely feeling the metal whip past his face even as he jerked Sam back. The danger presented by the little chain was nothing worse than an inconvenience, but he would step between Sam and a hell of a lot worse without hesitation. He just wished he could protect Sam from Dean himself. “See,” Dean said. “There’s a fucking door to this apartment and the lock sucks. I’m not holding you here. You can go any fucking place you want. I didn’t spring you from FREACS so you could be my  _slave_ or…”  _my punching bag, my whore_ , “or whatever the fuck, Sam. If you’d be happy somewhere else, then go. Save yourself, get the fuck out of my life before I become every fucking thing that you’re afraid of, what you—“ Dean bit himself off. He’d already said way too much, fucked himself so badly, and Sam…

Sam stared at him, horror making his eyes huge, his throat working. One hand wrapped around Dean’s hold on his arm, the other reached out and fisted itself in his shirt. Dean knew it couldn’t be an intentional action. Sam wouldn’t voluntarily touch him, never let himself get that close unless Dean touched him first.

 _Jesus, Dean,_  he thought.  _What kind of sick bastard are you that you’re getting hot because he’s fucking clinging to you in_  terror? _Yeah, you get your rocks off shredding kids like Sam. Great, Winchester. Start raping little girls next._

“You want me,” Sam panted. “You want me to l-leave?” The words fought their way out of his throat, caught and choked by the panic in his face and body. “You’re throwing me….”

And just like that, it all crashed. All Dean’s rage, all of the undiscriminating conflagration of hate, shame, and desire within him burned away, and he was left with the pain that was all his own. Smiling bitterly to himself, knowing he was a fucking pervert, Dean pulled Sam closer to him. He loved the way Sam fit in his arms, like he had been specially ordered for Dean to wrap his arms over the warm curve of his back and tuck him close. He hated the way Sam just yielded in his arms when Dean knew he would have been just as relaxed with a blow. Hell, he could still be anticipating violence even as he relaxed against Dean’s chest.

“No, I’m not, Sam,” he said heavily, letting his hands roam over Sam’s back, because he was already a fucking bastard. One of the worst people in the world, but still better than everyone else in Sam’s life. “I’m not fucking kicking you out. I just….I can’t stand it, Sam. I can’t fucking stand the way you look when you think I’m going to hit you. I’d give you anything, Sam, anything you want. But what I need you to have the most—and I’m terrified I can’t give you—is a place where you feel safe. How can you want me, how can you possibly want to be with me when,” _you see me as a monster_ , “when you’re always fucking afraid? Do you...do you even want to be here?”

“I don’t w-w-want to go b-back—“ Sam began painfully.

Dean loosened one hand to pull Sam’s face up. They were close enough to kiss. Dean couldn’t do that right now. Maybe never again. “I promised, and I never break my promises, Sam. Freak Camp isn’t even on the table. You’re never going back there, I didn’t even consider it. This isn’t a question of me or Freak Camp.” Dean hoped he would fucking win that contest. Hoped. “This is whether you want to be with me or with someone else. Somewhere else where you won’t have to be afraid all the time, where you won’t cringe all the time and you can eat whatever the hell you want without me watching you.” Dean didn’t have the foggiest fucking clue where he could find Sam a place like that. Didn’t know who he would ask or where he would look. But if Sam chose that, right now, he would find, build it, create it. If he had to build him a cabin in the Everglades or hide Sam in a castle and spend the rest of his days driving off the other monsters, Dean would. And he would start right now if Sam could only tell him that was what he wanted.

Sam looked away, looked anywhere but at Dean. When Sam’s hands slid up, over his face, Dean let him go and stepped back.

Sam took a deep, shaky breath, and then another. And then, so quietly that Dean could barely hear him over the beating of his own heart, Sam whispered, “I w-want to be with you.” He hesitated over the word “want” like he always did. When he turned away after the words and dropped his hands from his eyes, Dean could see wet spots on his hands, on his cheeks, eyes that wouldn’t look at him. He was closed off, shut down, as though he expected nothing, expected a blow, didn’t believe that Dean would give him what he asked for, might even throw him out now  _because_ he had dared to ask.

Dean reached out, almost desperately, about to give Sam whatever comfort he could, drive the pain out of his face any way he could. Then he let his hand fall, aware that he wouldn’t be able to start touching Sam right now and live with himself afterward.

“Then stay,” he said roughly. “I need a drink, I’m going out. Watch TV. Eat pasta. Do whatever the fuck you want.”

Sam nodded tightly, face showing nothing, a great emptiness where his soul should have been. He looked brittle enough to shatter if he hit a sharp corner. “You’re leaving?” He said it like a man who just wanted to be sure of an important, irrefutable detail: the date of his execution, the amount of poison he had just ingested.

“Be here when I come back,” Dean said. “I’ll be back. If you want me…just fucking be here.”

He walked back into the bedroom to grab his wallet and his keys—decided to leave the gun, no reason to court stupidity—and then left. Sam watched him all the way out, like he was watching the sun go down and didn’t know that it would ever rise again.

~*~

A few hours later, Dean had nowhere enough alcohol in him to let him forget the look on Sam’s face—accepting, peaceful, relaxed—when he had been almost about to slug him one, but enough alcohol to make his hands fumble for his phone nearly without conscious thought.

Bobby was number 2 on the speed dial. Four rings in, Dean decided no answer was probably for the best—no one should get in his way tonight, as one drunk would-be tough guy and his own blood alcohol level proved, he was fucking everything up and couldn’t even remember it going by—when Bobby picked up.

“Singer Salvage.”

Thank God. Hearing that gruff, uncompromising voice broke down every defensive instinct he had. “Bobby.”

The voice warmed and took on a barely-discernible affectionate tone that only pushed Dean closer to the edge. “‘Bout  _time_ you called, knucklehead. Been wondering if you got lost in a c—”

“Lost. Yeah. I wish. Fucking lost. Not even that, I just...I can’t, I can’t fucking do this, Bobby.” It was like that first confession broke down every wall Dean had, everything he’d been holding inside for the last few weeks. Words tumbled out, slurring and twisted and hardly comprehensible even to himself, and he barely had enough to time to wonder if they could do as much damage to another person as they did to him. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and I don’t know how to stop. And it fucking hurts to  _watch_ him…”

“Dean, what happened?” He wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t hear Bobby tensing up. “That kid hasn’t hurt you, has he? Fuck, Dean, are you—”

Easy to reclaim the rage when it felt so much better than gnawing despair. “Fuck yourself, Singer,” he snarled into the phone, getting a couple worried glances from the bartender and his closest bar mate. “Sam, Sam’s no... _he’s_ not the one, not the one getting hurt, I’m not hurt, he’s....you should see him, Bobby. He’s terrified. Of me. Fucking petrified. Calcified.  _Dinosaurified_. It’s like I’m hurting  _him_.”

“Dean, pull it together.” Bobby's voice had enough command in it that Dean could almost believe it was his father talking through the phone. “Freak Camp is a shit hole. Nobody’s got the full picture, and what he’s gone through...it’s not just going to go away in a couple of weeks.” Dean could hear secrets in Bobby’s voice, but he didn’t have the energy to hunt for them, not when he would follow any voice, take any advice that would dampen the fear and rage tangled up in his chest.

“Fuck Freak Camp,” he said. “And fuck the horse it came in on. I can’t do this, Bobby. Yeah, not going to go away in a week, shit like that, but this is Sam and every fucking time I try, he just...fuck. Fuck.”

Dean could practically hear Bobby processing that through the airwaves, maybe trying to parse out the sentence, adding the words that Dean couldn’t get out. He wondered if he was making any fucking sense through the booze and the pain. Probably not. What the fuck else was new.

“So, what’s the plan?” Bobby’s voice was neutral. Absently, Dean wondered why he cared. Yeah, Bobby had helped him through a lot of the shit he’d done in his life, and he’d co-signed the paperwork to get Sam out, but this was the first time Dean had ever heard that hint of nervousness in his voice. “Take him back?”

"Fuck no," Dean snapped. "Never. I just—I can’t even tell if he should be around me, Bobby. I...fuck, if there were _anywhere_ else...if I could do  _anything_ better, but everything I do just makes things  _worse_. There's got to be someplace else, someplace—"

"Shut up, get a grip, and listen," Bobby snapped. "There isn’t. There is no place else. You’re all he’s got and he trusts you.”

"No, he  _doesn't!_ " Dean's voice cracked like he was fucking thirteen again, like a high-strung little girl. "He doesn't trust me—he's fucking terrified every day that I’m gonna start beating him or kick him to the curb and I don't know _why!_  I'm—I'm fucking losing it here, Bobby!"

The silence stretched for a long time. Uncomfortably long. Dean was just trying to think through the alcohol haze about what he had said, maybe muddle backwards until he figured out where he’d put his foot in it, what he had said to fuck up  _this_  relationship, when Bobby spoke. It was like being blown round and round in a rickety boat and having the anchor catch—and stop him—on something solid. Dean took a steep breath but was grateful for the blow.

"What's the worst part?" Bobby asked quietly. "What gets under your skin the most?"

Dean thought. It wasn’t like it was a hard question. He knew. But it took a second to get it out. “He looks at me like I’m going to hit him,” he said. “Not just sometimes but...fuck, Bobby, every day. At least once, sometimes...sometimes that’s the only thing I can see on his face.”

Another silence. "Dean. It's...it's not personal. He's not afraid of  _you_ , he's afraid....hell, he's just afraid. You...you love that fr—kid more than anything but maybe that damn car of yours, and that means that you're the best chance he’s got. Where is he now?"

"Back at the apartment," Dean mumbled, cradling the phone against his mouth, sure he had done something wrong, but not sure what or how bad it was.

"Then the first step, Dean, is to get your ass back so he knows you aren't gone. You can't do a damn thing for him from some seedy bar, idjit."

Dean nodded, even though Bobby couldn’t see. "Yeah," Dean said. "Yeah, you're right. Like fucking always. Thanks, Bobby. I'm going back."

"Drive safe," Bobby said, and then Dean cut the call and pulled himself to his feet, one hand feeling for the Impala’s keys.

~*~

After Dean left, Sam stared at the door. Somewhere in the course of five minutes, his world had completely fallen apart, and he had no idea how it had gone so wrong so fast, nor did he know where to begin stitching it back together again.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there—he hadn’t thought to check a clock when Dean had come into the kitchen, and after that he...hadn’t been able to think of much of anything at all through the numb shock—but eventually he got himself moving. His desperate, panicked mind fixed on the last orders Dean had given, and he could no more stop himself from following them than he could have disobeyed Dean and slit his wrists.

 _Watch TV. Eat pasta. Do whatever the fuck you want...until I come back._

Sam turned on the television with shaking hands—he kept the volume down, he didn’t care what the plasticized, smiling people with the shiny machines were saying—and went to the kitchen. Eating was almost impossible—the pasta was soft and bug-less, the sauce without taint or rot; both almost unpalatable without Dean—but he choked it down because Dean had told him to. His body needed the food, and it was delicious, but the only way he could keep chewing and swallowing—he was eating sauce as well as pasta, but he thought that Dean had meant both with the general order, and what the fuck did it matter if he hadn’t, anyway?—was by remembering Dean’s voice, Dean’s promise to return, and believing that he had to meet Dean’s expectations to make that happen.

Cleaning the meal up after that was almost easy. He stored the extra pasta and sauce in Saran-wrap covered bowls, washed the pots, and carefully swept up every last soggy, half-frozen pea. He was so numb by that point that dumping the peas into the garbage can almost didn’t hurt.

Then he collapsed. Not literally, he wouldn’t do that to Dean, but he made it as far as the couch before the energy that had driven him, the resolution to  _obey_ , gave way to the confusion and the despair.

Dean had been so angry, and definitely at Sam this time, and Sam knew what he had done wrong—he should have been more careful with the peas, fucking hands shaking just too much at the wrong time—but he wasn’t convinced that Dean had actually been angry about the logical thing. He had shouted, and threatened to throw Sam out if he didn’t want him, and had  _shaken_ him—less than Kayla had done most Thursday mornings—and Sam didn’t know if this was just another strange thing that Dean was doing, another thing that he was too stupid to understand, or if this was the breaking of the floodgates. Would Dean beat him when he came back? Would Dean continue avoiding him like he had for the last few days?

Of the two options, Sam knew which he preferred.

When Dean finally came back—Sam refused to look at the clock, he didn’t want to know, he was just blindingly relieved that Dean  _was_ back, he had meant it when he said he’d be back—Sam was half-asleep, stretched out on the couch staring vacantly at the light and color the television threw over the walls. He couldn’t even have said what was on, and it became even less important the second Dean walked back through the door.

Sam closed his eyes and fought down the dizzying relief, tried to keep himself as still as possible. Dean would know that he was awake by how his breathing sped up when he entered the room, but it wasn’t Sam’s place to resist what was coming.

Dean slammed and bolted the door, his movements sloppy, his eyes unfocused and half-closed when he glanced at Sam.

Sam braced himself when Dean moved away from the door, but he just stumbled to the bathroom—Sam thought of it as his bathroom, but that was stupid and arrogant to claim any kind of ownership when everything in the apartment belonged to Dean, he should be beaten for that thought alone—and turned on the light. Sam heard him unzip, pee and fumble at the sink before reappearing.

Dean walked unsteadily to the TV and hit the off button. Sam shifted uncertainly in the sudden darkness. It was a shock, like when the light had been doused in an interrogation room before a blow. In the thin, soft light from the bathroom, Sam saw Dean move slowly toward the couch.

 _Here it comes_ , Sam thought, and all he felt was readiness and relief. Dean had come back. It would all be okay. “Dean,” he whispered, when the silence stretched long enough for fear to sneak in under his skin.

Dean held up a hand. He was swaying even while he stood still, and his words were slightly slurred. “Don’t say anything, Sam. Don’t...just please don’t. Just...scoot over.”

Sam moved, heart beating too hard. He wanted to ask if he should be on his back, or ass up, or crawl down to the floor so Dean could stretch out, but Dean had told him to be silent, so he was while Dean sat next to his legs and clumsily knocked his boots off.

He couldn’t choke off a little noise—maybe a whimper, just out of surprise—when Dean fell over, half beside, half on top of Sam.

Dean patted him absently. “‘Sokay,” he said, sweet alcohol on his breath and eyes already closed. “It‘ll all be okay.”

With the next sigh, the rest of Dean’s weight slumped against him, like he had fallen asleep. Sam couldn’t quite believe it, but didn’t know why Dean would try to trick him. Cautiously—just a test, he wouldn’t have dared if it wasn’t a test—he lifted his one free hand and stroked the back of Dean’s hand, hanging off the edge of the couch, with his forefinger. And then again.

Sometime later, after Dean’s even breathing never changed, Sam, too, exhaled and closed his eyes.

~*~

Dean didn't sleep well. He woke up at daybreak, groggy and confused about why he was half-smothering Sam on the sofa, and then the memories of last night slammed into him with the hangover. With a supreme force of will, he did not vomit on Sam. Instead he peeled himself off and staggered for his bedroom, shutting the light off in Sam’s bathroom on his way past. By the time he showered, washed his mouth out—which did nothing to ease the nausea or help him feel clean—and changed clothes, his head was pounding like a goddamned drum corps. He dry-swallowed aspirin and ignored it, aware he had fully merited every throb.

When he re-emerged in the living room, Sam was sitting up on the sofa, staring down at his hands, left twisting his right. Dean had to swallow back bile a couple of times, remembering what he had done yesterday, the things he had said. And Sam was the one looking like a guilty child.

In this light, Sam was too young, too fragile to have survived half of what he had survived. Too young for anything that Dean was feeling for him to be okay.

When he finally managed to speak, it came out as a hoarse croak. "Hungry?"

Sam's head snapped up for a moment before dropping again. He squeezed his hands tighter, shoulders a mass of tension, and Dean tried not to think about what Sam thought would happen to him if he didn’t find the right answer.

Finally, Sam spoke, though in no more than a whisper. "I...I could eat."

Dean groped along the breakfast bar for his sunglasses. "Get your shoes, then. We're going out."

The cafe was close, one of the first places recommended to Dean when he arrived in Boulder. The owner was a sixth-generation Boulderian, or whatever they were called, and the service was so famously friendly the place was packed to the gills most mornings and bursting on weekends. Dean told the apologetic hostess that, yes, the patio was fine, and kept his sunglasses on against the godawful glare.

The waitress was a slim young college girl Dean would have flirted with any other day, but this morning he could barely look at her. Sam was even more subdued than the last time they were out, staring down his menu as though it contained endless, alien mysteries. Dean ordered coffee for himself, juice and milk for Sam, and two breakfast specials: pancakes, bacon, eggs, hash browns. Sam didn't react, even when the girl gently pulled the menu out of his hand.

The meal passed in silence. The food was good; they both ate, and Dean felt better, physically.

He thought about saying something like:  _if I ever treat you like that again_... but had no way to finish the sentence. Sam couldn't stop Dean, retaliate, threaten to leave. Nothing. He was utterly trapped, so it was up to Dean to be a decent human being. That was all. Shouldn't be so hard.

So instead of saying anything, Dean pushed the syrup over to Sam. Slowly, so he wouldn't jump. Sam froze, but after a moment, he took the sticky little bottle. After another hesitation, he poured it over the rest of his pancakes like Dean had and then set it down.

The waitress came back several times to refill Dean’s coffee and generally make sure they were satisfied with the meal. When their plates were clean of every last bite, she laughed and said it must have been good enough. Sam nodded without looking up, and Dean thought,  _well there's that, at least_. He hadn't been able to ask Sam himself, not while he knew Sam felt obligated to tell him whatever he thought Dean wanted to hear. He didn't think Sam felt the same need to lie to strangers.

They sat there for several more minutes after the bill was paid. No one rushed them—the place was starting to empty out, breakfast rush over and lunch crowd still too early—and the street was quiet with only the occasional passing car. They watched birds peck at a crust of French bread wedged under a nearby table, until a monstrously fat pigeon came in and snatched it away, ending the tussle.

Dean exhaled, massaging his eyes under his sunglasses. Then he looked Sam full in the face for the first time since he had woken up that morning. "Do you want to go to the library?"

Sam started, looked up—though only for a few seconds before dropping his gaze to the ground—and began twisting his hands. "Ah. There's still...a c-couple books I haven't r-read yet, in the apartment..."

Dean lifted one shoulder. "You can take back the ones you've finished and get some more."

After a moment, Sam nodded, blinking. "Okay. Unless...there's a-anything else y-you wanted to do, because I can always—"

"There's nothing I want to do, Sam," Dean said. "Nothing in the world."

He hadn't meant it to sound like—anything, really, not angry or sarcastic, or as tired as he felt, but at the words, Sam pulled his legs up to his chest and hugged them, tucking his chin between his sharp, bony knees. He looked wretched, and it hurt Dean more than the unforgiving sun on his sensitive eyes, so he pulled the glasses off when he stood up. “Let's go, Sam."

And without hesitation, Sam stood and followed him.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, sadly, our last chapter before hiatus. Hope you enjoy!

To be honest, Sam had no idea what the fuck was going on.

Dean went from hot to cold, from caring for Sam during his sickness to staying— _hiding_ , part of him whispered—in his room, from being so angry that Sam knew he was about to be beaten, to just…not.

Dean screamed at him, but told him to eat. Dean left him, but came back and slept beside him. Dean brought him to a restaurant and seemed thoroughly miserable, then brought him to a library. Surrounded by the thousands of books, the smell of paper and the safety of quiet, Sam had forgotten to watch Dean—what was coming next? He had to be prepared—and when he realized what he had done and glanced back, Dean had been smiling faintly, as though Sam’s happiness was contagious. As though he were happy  _for_ him.

Sam was almost painfully confused, but as the day passed and nothing bad happened, he was willing to cautiously classify this as  _better_. He and Dean ate together, spent time together after dinner, and Dean seemed more…open. Accepting.

Sam found himself more than once thinking about Dean sprawled on top of him on the couch, being able to feel—or at least imagine—Dean’s heartbeat against Sam’s spine. Sam almost hoped that would happen again, especially when they sat on the couch, especially when Dean came close enough to touch. But it didn’t. Dean stopped at the edge of the living room to tell him goodnight, and for a moment he hesitated, as Sam sat with his eyes on the carpet, hoping—but then Dean disappeared down the hall.

Sam feared the resignation he caught in Dean’s face sometimes—he could remember that look in Becca’s eyes, and he was beginning to think that it had meant horrible things he couldn’t have imagined then—but at least he had Dean near again, and he had to count that as better.

He just hoped that this once, it wouldn’t get worse again.

~*~

When Dean woke up the next morning, he had a plan.

Part of him chafed at it, sure that it was the kind of concession that only weak bastards and cowards would make, giving into pressures from beyond them. He hated even considering playing by the rules of Freak Camp and the sonsofbitches who had fucked Sam up in the first place. The very last thing he wanted to do was surrender to what they had done, tacitly say, “Yeah, you fucked Sam up and I’m okay with that.”

He hated it. But at the same time, he knew that he was balancing on a thin edge and any misstep would slice into him like the sharpest knife. Even Dean could tell that when a guy threatened to throw a defenseless trauma victim out of the house, got wasted, and then collapsed on that very same survivor, he wasn’t exactly in the sanest headspace. This was no game, but maybe he and Sam needed some ground rules, anyway, for both their sakes.

If anything would make it easier, he had to do it. He wasn’t sure he could hold on if this whole fucked-up situation with Sam got any worse.

They had breakfast and chilled on the couch like usual. Sam read, Dean pretended to watch TV, and then a little before noon, Dean got up.

“Hey, Sam, I want to talk with you about something.”

Sam closed his book carefully. “Yes, Dean?”

“Let’s…go to the table. I’ll make hot chocolate.”

Right before lunch was the perfect time. Dean had a vague conviction that food fixed things, so if this went badly, he would make sandwiches. But a little drinkable chocolate beforehand couldn’t hurt either.

It took longer to get the chocolate together than he had expected. Probably he was stalling. He just really didn’t want to do this—but at the same time, he very badly wanted it to work.

When Sam was seated at the table with a cup of hot cocoa piled high with marshmallows—warm, but not actually hot, Dean had made that mistake only once, when Sam just  _drank_ it—Dean sat across from him and looked at him. Sam’s eyes were locked somewhere in the middle of the table.

"I’ve been having a really tough time with this whole thing, in case you haven’t noticed, Sam,” Dean began, ignoring the way Sam’s arms tensed and the marshmallows shook on top of his cocoa. “And I think we’ve got to change some things.”

Sam seemed to finally notice his own shaking hand and let go of the mug, fast, sloshing liquid over the top. “I’m s-sorry,” he said, looking anywhere but at Dean. “L-let me go, wipe it up, I’m sorry—”

When Sam would have bolted for a rag, Dean stopped him by grabbing his wrist and pulling him back into his chair. It was a loose hold, a toddler could have broken it easily, but Sam dropped like he’d reached the end of a chain, and Dean once again had to fight the slow, smoldering desire—he’d thought it was gone, but even a little twitch could bring it right back to the surface—to hit something until everything that had ever hurt Sam was dust and bones.

"I'm going to lay down some rules," Dean said, keeping his voice even, non-threatening. "And I want you to do the best you can to follow them, okay?"

Sam nodded, almost frantically, and then took a deep breath and became almost unnaturally still. Dean could practically see him pulling himself together. And that was exactly why they needed rules: Sam could search for all the inner peace he needed, but he should not believe that he needed it to survive what was coming. Dean would protect him no matter what. And Sam had to know that that meant Dean would stop himself, too.

~

Sam wished he could stop being afraid. He really did, because the more he acted like he had been taught, the more he tried to be cautious—figure out what Dean wanted, offer him anything—the more Dean retreated from him, the less he touched him, the more Sam saw the blind rage in his eyes—or worse, the dull hopelessness—that threatened to rip away any shred of comfort he had gained.

But Rules—he could do Rules. He could do anything Dean needed him to do, anything he wanted, if Dean would just _tell him what it was_.

If Dean told him to drop to his knees, make him dinner, cut himself open on one of the small knives, Sam could do that. He was ready, every moment of every day for anything Dean wanted. And now,  _now_ , if he was finally laying out his expectations, well, Sam was more than ready to listen, remember, repeat back and obey.

At least that’s what he told himself as he folded his hands over the table to hide their shaking.

"Rule one," Dean said. "Always look me in the eye. Sam, I want you to look at me, not your feet."

Sam forced his eyes to Dean’s. See. He could listen. He could obey. Even though every instinct hardwired into his body screamed for him to drop the gaze and his heart rate doubled just from holding eye contact this long.

"Rule two: you can only apologize once a day. Do  _not_ say you are sorry for everything, Sam, because it's not your fault, and I don't blame you." Dean watched him steadily. Sam didn’t have the foggiest idea what his reaction was supposed to be, but he had to smother the desire to apologize, and the equally crazy instinct to laugh hysterically. He wished Dean would stop. These rules didn’t make sense, and though he was  _so good_ at following commands to the letter, he already had the awful premonition that these would be impossible.

But Dean continued. "Rule three: if someone is hurting you—and I mean in any way, Sam—you slug the bastard. I don't care if they look at you funny, or snort or something, you hit them hard until they stop, Sam, even if it's me."

"Dean! That's not—" Sam bit it off. One did not fight Rules. One got hurt if one fought the Rules. But these Rules were all wrong, all messed up, and even though he knew that Dean meant them, Sam could not imagine hitting Dean. It was hard to imagine hitting any real, but he couldn't even try to imagine hitting Dean without wanting to curl up into a little ball. He brought his hands up over his eyes, which already broke Rule One. Fuck fuck fuck, this was falling apart already.

Dean caught his wrists, brought his hands down, waited until he could force himself, slowly, to look back up. "But the most important Rule, Sam," Dean said, speaking so softly Sam had to control his breathing just to hear him through the pounding in his ears. "The most important Rule is that you have to tell me what you want. And when you find something you don't like, you have to say 'no,' you have to say 'stop.' If I'm doing it, I'll stop, Sam. If someone else is, I'll stop  _them_. But you have to tell me what you want, what you don't want, because if I hurt you because you didn't tell me what was going wrong, I would never forgive myself. Sam, look at me. Do you believe me when I say this?"

Sam stared at Dean, and his face showed nothing but sincerity and earnest hope.

Dean didn't want him hurt, in any way. Sam could hurt Dean, just by letting the pain slide by like he always had before. This was so different— _so wrong_ , a small voice said,  _why should he care about a monster?_ —but it wasn't bad. It could be...it could be something that Sam couldn't have imagined, something so much better, with four simple Rules.

He nodded.

Instantly, Dean looked happier, steadier, but he kept his grip on Sam's arms. "Good. I'm glad. But there's one more thing you need to remember. I really want you to follow these Rules, but I also want you to know that no matter how many times you break them...nothing is going to happen to you. Absolutely nothing. I won't be angry, hurt you, or kick you out. Got it?"

 _No_  was on the tip of Sam's tongue. That didn't make any sense whatsoever, because part of Rules was Punishment—inevitably swift and agonizing—whenever the Rules were broken. But he looked at Dean, thinking of how the structure of his world had been turned upside down since Dean had taken him away. How good life had been, when it wasn’t falling apart. Sam chose to believe him.

“Yes, Dean,” he said, and breathed in the light of Dean’s smile, the relaxing of Dean’s hands on his wrists. This was going to be damned hard, but Sam was going to try.

~*~

A couple hours after Sam and Dean split two large pizzas (meat lovers and veggie, for the vitamins and protein) for lunch, Bobby called.

Dean almost went for the gun he wasn’t wearing—startling Sam, tucked on the other side of the couch with his feet almost touching Dean’s—when the cellphone started wailing in his pocket. Dean rested an automatic, reassuring hand on Sam’s shoulder while he dug for the stupid thing. He didn’t know why he even had it on him, when it only rang once in a blue moon and nearly gave him a heart attack when it did.

He held his breath instinctively until he saw Bobby’s name on the screen, then stood up and flicked it open, walking around the coffee table. “Hey Bobby, what’s up?”

“Kid. Just making sure you’re holding it together.”

Dean cleared his throat, not sure if he wanted to hang out awkwardly in the middle of the living room for this conversation. Would stepping out onto the landing give Sam the wrong impression? “No, everything’s better. Loads. We’re doing...okay.”  _I’m not drunk and shouting at Sam anymore, at least._

“Good. Glad to hear it.” Bobby sounded as matter of fact as he would checking on the aftermath of any hunt. But he hadn’t actually gotten any new information about how it had wrapped up, and that made Dean nervous about what was coming. “Hey, I wanted to give you a heads-up: you’re going to be getting a package from me in the mail soon. Don’t do something stupid like light it on fire or some other fool thing.”

Dean huffed. “C’mon, Bobby, you know I’m totally professional about lighting shit on fire. What is it?”

“It’s a book,” Bobby said, meaningfully. “Which is why I’m telling you not to use it for tinder. I want you to  _read_ it, Dean, and when you’re done, read it again.”

“Huh.” Dean glanced over at Sam, still holding the book in his lap but watching him from under his bangs. “Do I get any hints?”

Bobby harrumphed evasively. “It could help. Maybe. I dunno. It’s not like there’s a damn instruction manual for taking care of a kid that’s been raised in that hellhole, but I did my best. So you’re going to  _read_ it and think about what you’ve read and if you start falling to pieces again, you damn well call me. And not at three a.m. this time. Got it?”

For a minute, Dean held the phone to his ear in silence. Sam was still watching, and Dean had to turn away slightly, not sure how anyone would interpret the relief on his face. “Thanks, Bobby. I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, well, don’t nominate me for sainthood yet. Damn book might be no more useful than the paper it’s printed on. And it’s that thin modern plasticized stuff that don’t burn for shit, too, so that might not be much.”

Dean leaned against the kitchen doorway. “Thanks anyway, Bobby. For thinking about us.”

“Yeah. Whatever you need, kid.”

Dean heard the click, and Bobby was gone.

~*~

Before, there had been no Rules. Now there were Rules. Though they bore no resemblance to any Rules Sam had ever known before—as alien as cold fire, liquid bullets and a weak Director—they were nevertheless clear, concrete instructions formed with unambiguous, comprehensible words. Apparent impossibility did not matter. Sam had been given orders that seemed impossible before, and had obeyed them anyway, with varying level of success. For the ones he had failed, he had been given sufficient motivation to do better.

After what seemed like weeks of struggling through a depthless ocean, gradually losing his sense of up, down, and survival, Sam’s feet had found bottom, and he could breathe and keep his head above water. Dean had, at last, told Sam explicitly what he had to do to please him, and regardless of whether or not that would be easy, how long it might take him to learn or what might happen in the meantime, Sam felt stable for the very first time in the real world.

He recited the four Rules constantly in his head, running over Dean’s exact phrasing until he could repeat each Rule backwards and forwards at a moment’s notice. Dean had yet to test if he had been listening, if he had remembered, but that was unimportant. Sam had Rules now, and he had to be prepared.

Sam had decided almost immediately that Rule Two would be the easiest. Despite the urge to tell Dean how very, very sorry he was every time he fucked up—he could do better if Dean would be patient and give him another chance—Sam had forced himself to be silent under far more strenuous circumstances, so he should be able to control himself now, especially since Dean had promised he would not, no matter what, put Sam back in FREACS.

Rule One wouldn’t be much harder, despite the overwhelming compulsion to  _drop_ to his knees that he felt every time he met Dean’s gaze for more than a second. Sam could overcome it. He had done things as difficult before, with less forgiveness. He  _would_ overcome it.

Rules Three and Four were much, much harder to parse. Sam understood the individual words, but he couldn’t visualize situations in which these Rules would come into play.

For example, if he was being hurt—in  _any_ way, Dean had said—Sam was supposed to _hit them hard until they stop_. Barring any alternate definitions of “hit them hard,” Sam had to take that to mean he should initiate a literal, physical attack. So there were certain times—obvious to Dean because he knew his way around the real world—when Sam was supposed to respond with violence.

If Dean had been referring to situations with monsters, the Rule was perfectly applicable, but almost unnecessary. Dean had told Sam that he didn’t want him hurting himself, and as far as Sam was concerned, letting another freak get the better of him would be about the same as clawing up his own arms. The first freak that touched him would get his hand—or the nearest vulnerable body part—broken.

But Dean couldn’t have meant him to use force on reals, and  _absolutely_ not against hunters, because the repercussions—Sam shuddered hard, involuntarily, even considering them. Even more baffling, Dean had said you  _hit them hard...even me_ , which was absolutely nonsensical, and not just because Dean had  _never_ hurt Sam, even when he shook him, but because he was  _Dean_.

Dean had been serious about the Rule, though, or he wouldn’t have made it, so Sam took it seriously. He thought about it a lot, running scenarios in his head. That night, after his shower, he struggled to imagine himself obeying:  _slugging_ someone, any real, because of the way they looked at him—and his chest contracted, painfully, terrifying familiar, until he leaned against the door and forced his mind blank, taking slow deep breaths.

He had done so many dirty, disgusting things, but he had been able to do them because he was a freak and those were the things freaks did. But if he—struck back—at anyone but another monster....

It didn’t make sense, and it terrified him every time he thought too hard, but Dean had made the Rule, and it wasn’t for Sam to question it or its consequences. Consequences were irrelevant, obedience was imperative. He still feared he wouldn’t recognize the situations Dean had in mind, that he would disobey the first time because he hadn’t been prepared, but he had to trust Dean here, too, that he had meant the last caveat, to  _any_ degree. And that was almost as impossible to imagine: how could  _nothing_ happen, no retribution, after a broken Rule?

Rule Four was just as difficult, though it didn’t scare Sam quite as much, because it didn’t demand any aggressive acts. It demanded  _words_ , yes, words that would not be easy to voice, but he didn’t see how Dean would know for certain if Sam was breaking it. Yes, sometimes he gave himself away—with noises he couldn’t prevent and defensive motions he should have broken himself of years ago—but Dean had never liked those anyway.

The introduction of Rules had him reeling, obsessed with etching every word of the Rules into his psyche and parsing every word to make sure he understood. For the first time since leaving Freak Camp, he was once again balanced on the—now even thinner—knifepoint of behavioral requirements and expectations, and faced with the possibility of failing to meet the standards Dean had given him. But for now, at least, he only had to focus on the first two Rules ( _meet Dean’s eyes, and don’t apologize, even for all the times you forget and look down_ ) and keep the other two in mind.

And every hour that Dean didn’t reprimand him for his failings, didn’t tell him to sit at the table while he got out his knives, it got easier. First of all, because this was obedience, and Sam could overcome a great deal of instinct with that excuse. But secondly, every time he held Dean’s gaze a little longer, choked off another apology, Dean smiled a little wider, relaxed a little more.

Clearly he was doing what Dean wanted, making him happier, and for now that was enough. He didn’t have to worry about the harder Rules yet. That would come later.

~*~

Dean liked how dinner had gone. There had been a tense moment when Sam dropped a fork while he was setting the table—he’d frozen like a rabbit about to bolt, before letting out a shaky breath, picking it up, and returning to the kitchen to replace it with a new fork—but otherwise it had been good.

Dean had made chicken cordon bleu—from a box again, but, sue him, Dean’s top skills weren’t in the kitchen—and the conversation had moved along steadily from Dean laboriously piecing together Sam’s favorite parts of his latest book using the most innocuous questions he could think of, to Dean recounting his last major pool hustle. It had involved three redneck idiots, their blond bombshell (and much smarter) sister, a ferret and two pigs, and by the end of the story Sam was smiling a little over his glass.

When Dean polished off the last piece of oozing cheese, Sam got up, that same half-smile lingering on his lips. “Can I do the dishes?”

“I’d argue that it’s my turn, as you set the table too, but go for it,” Dean said. “Though if you need help, just say. It’s not like I actually cooked or anything.”

Dean felt lazy making—letting?—Sam do all the work, but at the same time Sam looked happier, steadier when he was doing something. Dean had to remember that he needed things—rules they both lived by, assurances that Sam was twitching just because he was twitching and not because Dean was hurting him—but Sam had needs, too. And if Sam wanted to set tables, and clean, and cater, well, Dean could live with that every once in a while. Granted, it was easier too to sit there with a couple beers and a decent dinner in him.

Outside, a car door slammed, followed by a couple muted adult voices along with the high piping of a little girl. Dean guessed it was the family that lived under them; he’d seen the parents several times since he’d moved in, though he hadn’t done much more than nod and flash a smile on his way out. They were a young couple with a yappy dog and a pink-cheeked, curly blond-haired toddler, and they looked about as apple-pie civilian as you could get. Maybe sometime, when Sam was more comfortable (and that would be  _when_ , not if, though that might take months or more), he and Dean could introduce themselves. It might help Sam to meet people who treated him decent, see that they weren’t afraid and thought of him as nothing more threatening than a shy kid.

The family must have just reached their front door when the mutt started barking, and the girl greeted him with an earsplitting shriek of joy.

A second later, Dean heard the unmistakable smash of glass in the kitchen, and he leaped up and hurtled around the corner.

The glass had shattered around Sam’s feet. It had probably just slipped from his hand. No blood, and Sam was wearing shoes. He’d be able to walk out off the tile without cutting his feet so Dean could sweep up the glass.

It was okay. Everything was fine—an adrenaline kick, but manageable—until Dean looked up and saw the pallor of Sam’s face. His eyes were wide, horrified, staring blankly at the shards, and he didn’t notice Dean standing there for a long moment, and when he did, he flinched away with a gasp.

“I’m s—“ he started, and then bit off the word. Dean saw a shudder race through him, and Sam shook his head. “I’m sssss—“ He gasped, fighting for breath, shaking so violently the cupboard door shuddered against him. He made another low noise, part hiss, part moan, and practically caved on himself.

 _I’m sorry._  Sam was trying desperately to follow the rule. Dean, feeling sick and horrified himself, caught him before Sam’s knees hit the floor.

“It’s okay, Sam, you’re fine, I’m fine. It’s just a glass, you’ll be fine. Step over the glass, we’re going to go to the living room. Big steps, no glass shards, okay?”

Sam was warm and shaking in his arms. Distantly, Dean wished they had, magically or something, gotten beyond these breakdowns. Because every time Sam collapsed in his arms, it ripped his heart apart again just when he had thought it was getting better—or maybe that he couldn’t feel as much.

They didn’t make it to the couch. Dean got Sam into a chair and pulled another one close to him.

“Sam, Sam,  _breathe_. It’s okay. Sam, please, it’s okay.”

Sam was still making that low keening sound, cutting off the apology fighting to get out, the panic overwhelming him.

Dean knew that he should keep his hands off, shouldn’t get that close—too much temptation—but he grabbed Sam’s arm, rubbed at his shoulder, anything to stop that horrible, pain-filled noise.

“It’s okay, Sam, you can say it, it’s okay.” Dean pulled him into a hug, drew his head in close. Fuck it, he had to, afraid otherwise Sam would shake himself apart. “Say it, Sam!”

“I’m s-s-sorry,” Sam gasped, and buried his face in Dean’s neck. “I’m….rules… _Dean_.” He took a desperate, shaky breath, and Dean could hear the apology in his name, the desperation. And because he had been at that same point only a few days ago, he could hear the despair here, too. “Dean.”

“No, Sam, it’s okay.” Very daring, Dean stroked his hair. How long had it been since he had touched Sam this easily? Just a few days? And he had missed this so very badly. “I asked you to. You don’t have to apologize, there is absolutely nothing you have to apologize for, but it’s okay that you did. These rules aren’t supposed to hurt, Sam.”

Sam made a little choking noise that seemed almost like a laugh. “Rules,” he whispered, but slowly—far too fucking slowly for Dean’s peace of mind—his shudders subsided.

When Sam was calm and still in his arms, Dean moved himself away and looked at him. Sam wasn’t looking him in the eye, but he wasn’t looking at anything in particular. It seemed almost like he was trying to put himself back together, and Dean could understand that taking some time.

“You okay?” Dean asked.

Sam jerked his head toward the kitchen. “Glass?”

Dean waved his hand dismissively. “Cheap. We’ve got five more. I’ll clean it up.” Sam flinched, and Dean rested his hand on his arm again. Dean didn’t know if Sam was afraid or found the contact reassuring, but he knew which one he was hoping for. “ _We_ can clean it up, Sam. If you want.”

Sam nodded, and then visibly gathered strength. His voice, when he spoke, was even quieter and more hesitant. “Girl?”

“Um.” Dean blinked. “Girl?”

Sam twitched all over, and ducked his head. “The scream…th-the girl. Never…never mind.”

Realization dawned slowly. “I don’t…I don’t think that was anything, Sam. I can check if you want.” Dean half stood before Sam shook his head, and he lowered himself into the chair again.

They sat together for a long time, and then Dean got the broom and swept up the glass. Sam held the garbage bag open for the shards and wiped down the counter afterward.

They were doing okay, Dean thought. Even if episodes like that had to happen, they were learning to rebound.

~*~

The next morning dawned gray and drizzly, but Dean felt unnaturally cheery. Yeah, things had gotten precariously close to the edge again last night, but they were up, eating Lucky Charms, and the day looked manageable.

They spent the morning watching TV, reading, and playing rummy. By lunch, between Sam’s silence and the rain, Dean had way more energy than options. He dampened some of it by making grilled cheese sandwiches and, while they ate, bombarding Sam with things they could do around Boulder when he was feeling better.

But after half an hour of talking about hiking, opera, rock climbing, butterfly pavilions, and baseball (spending at least ten of those minutes comparing the advantages of the history museum over a local meadery—”I mean, one place you learn history, the other one you get to drink it, Beowulf-style!”)—he started noticing a trend.

He would mention a place, and Sam would say, “That sounds good, Dean.” He’d mention another, and Sam would agree that too was wonderful. He’d try to wheedle an opinion out of him and get a mild preference—boating briefly gained a narrow margin—before it reversed completely a couple minutes later. Sometimes Dean could tell that Sam really would rather go hiking than shopping in the closest mega mall, but if he had just been going by his  _Yes, Dean_ s and _that sounds wonderful_ s, they would be signed up for sky diving and ballroom dancing by the end of the week.

At last, Dean sighed. “Sam.” He leaned forward, narrowly avoiding the remains of lunch with his elbow. The frozen french fries had turned out a little soggy, but Sam still seemed to have enjoyed them. “I’m going to add another rule.”

Sam froze, the last quarter of his grilled cheese sandwich raised to his lips. He put it down and hastily wiped his fingers on his napkin. “Yes, Dean?”

Dean met his eyes, and felt so damn proud when Sam didn’t drop his. They didn’t even waver as much as they had yesterday. “Every day, I want you to say ‘no’ to me at least once.”

Sam paled and ducked his head. He tucked his hands beneath the table, but Dean knew they were probably shaking.

“Sam. You know I wouldn’t ask this if I didn’t think you could do it.” Dean waited, but Sam continued breathing shakily with his eyes down. Dean took a jagged breath himself and kept his hand gripped around the edge of the table. Maybe Sam wouldn’t notice. Ha. “You never say no, Sam. And it’s really important to me that you tell me what makes you unhappy, uncomfortable, or, hell, Sam, even if you would rather do one thing instead of another. I’m not going to ask you to tell me where to shove it—though if you want to, Sam, go for it—I just want one little word, once a day. I promise, Sam, I’ll make it really easy. Look.” Dean loosened the top of the salt shaker and extended it over Sam’s plate and the piece of sandwich he’d put down. “Sam, should I dump this entire shaker of salt over your sandwich?”

Sam stared at him, visibly shaking now. Dean could see things he didn’t want to see fighting it out in Sam’s head. “If you…n-no. No.” He shook his head violently and shrank on himself.

Dean’s throat tightened. There it was once again, proof—as though he needed more—of the number they had done on Sam. Dean had  _asked_ Sam to say no, had given him a perfect opportunity, his intention couldn’t be more obvious, and Sam was still shaking like he had run a mile all-out.

Dean put down the salt and reached over to draw Sam’s hand from beneath the table. “That’s good, Sam. I won’t. Thank you.”

Sam’s hand clenched his, shaking as much as Dean had thought, but after a few seconds of Dean’s soft, reassuring voice, Sam relaxed, and Dean felt something untwist in his gut.

Dean wanted to kiss that hand (and Sam’s trembling mouth), but he settled for smiling and squeezing Sam’s fingers before letting go. “See, Sam. Easy. One day at a time.”

Sam gasped, and it was almost a laugh, but much closer to a sob.

After dishes were put away, and Sam was back on the couch with a book, Dean went for a run. He didn’t mind a little rain.

~*~

The package was waiting when he came back from his run. He slipped back to his bedroom to open it, just in case. Bobby’s description had been vague to the point of worrying, and he had decided that anything that made him nervous he shouldn’t be opening in front of Sam.

But when he pulled off the plain brown wrapping, it was just, as advertised, a book. A good-sized book with thin pages and medium print.  _Recovering the Survivors: A Practical Guide to Handling Post-Traumatic Stress and Trauma-Related Problems_. Dean skimmed the table of contents and felt a coil of anxiety relax for the first time. He didn’t know where Bobby had found it, but even realizing that someone else had dealt with these problems, that someone else had thought about how to solve them, made him feel better.

He thought briefly about covering the book the way he had been required to wrap his textbooks. Bobby had sent plenty of extra paper with the book. But, really, he knew that it was a waste of the paper. Sam wasn’t going to pry, and if he did, so what? This was supposed to help him, too. They didn’t need secrets.

Dean read the book once, carefully, and then, mindful of Bobby’s instructions, again. The first time took him a day and a half. He read nonstop for hours, focusing like when he researched for a case, barely aware of how Sam kept peeking at him over his own book. Sam seemed concerned at Dean’s radical behavior change, and kept watching him during meals like he thought Dean was going to shake him again, or leave. When it finally clicked for Dean just how much Sam's anxiety was ramping up again—when, through dinner conversation, Sam could barely force more than a couple words out through the stutter that had been hardly noticable the day before—he made a special effort to smile, to squeeze his hand, and to take a break to play cards again, dragging his mind out of the book and back to the here and now.

Sam didn’t look completely reassured, but he ate better and seemed less nervous. Dean, gaining insight with every page, counted that as a win.

The second reading took three days, and he had to stop often, dropping the book in his bedroom and taking grueling runs around the block, once running all the way to the park just so he could go up and down the killer stairs Sam had fallen down. He needed the adrenaline, the extra pump of his heart to give his brain space to work. He felt compelled to relive every hour of the last four weeks and see how they slotted into place with Sam’s conditions. He had to know, down to the last detail, what he had done wrong, and how he could avoid making those mistakes again.

Of course not everything lined up perfectly. The book itself said that each case was different, but a lot of Sam’s behaviors were just a little different from the textbook cases, and other parts were completely missing.

Rage, for example. It was supposed to be a primary response, outbursts and irritation a normal outlet for the survivor’s past and current helplessness, but Sam didn’t display that, not even a flicker.

Then again, other things were so word-for-word exact it sent chills down Dean’s spine. Hell, the book even mentioned breakdowns in grocery stores. More than once he ended up swearing at himself, pacing his bedroom and raging—if Sam didn’t have anger, Dean certainly did, and sometimes he wondered if he should be more concerned about that—at all the catastrophes they could have avoided if Dean had done a little research on this shit during those six months he kicked his heels waiting for Sam to be released...

But he hadn’t known, couldn’t have predicted this. Not even Bobby had suggested it then, and Dean suspected he knew more than he was letting on. But there was no use looking back: what he had to do now was take what he knew, apply it, and hope like hell he hadn’t messed Sam up too bad already.

No, he wasn’t going to think that way. From here on out, it was going to be positive thoughts, all the time, because Dean had scraped all his pride away when he hit rock-bottom, and now he was ready to take every bit of professional advice he could get. Sam  _was_ going to get better, Dean  _was_ going to get his shit together, and they would be okay. One day at a time.

~*~

Two whole chapters dealt with physical contact and how crucial it was to trauma victims. Dean read plenty of warnings about how it could set them off, trigger negative reactions, and send victims spiraling to the worst places in their head, especially when the contact was unexpected or undesired.

But, conversely, there was a lot about the effects of touch deprivation, particularly on kids. The book said that sometimes touch, the good kind, could be vital for someone recovering from trauma. “Good touch” had to be from someone the victim trusted, and could only happen in a safe, consensual environment. No pushing and no strangers.

Dean had broken that rule often enough he could throw up thinking about it, but it was no good looking back. They had restarted, were on a better track now, and he could  _tell_ Sam was feeling better with rules to obey, even when the application of them backfired horribly.

He didn’t want to automatically consider himself someone Sam trusted—not while the image of Sam pulling away from him was seared into his brain—but he couldn’t forget, either, all the other times the perpetual tension and fear in Sam eased when Dean took his hand or had pulled him close. The time Sam had said, “Don’t go,” and  _reached_ for him. Dean couldn’t forget those moments, because they were all that had kept him going last week.

Bobby had told him, too.  _He trusts you. You’re the only one_. Maybe so, and if he was—well, too late to undo the lines he’d crossed before, but he could (had to) repair some of the damage.

When he sat down on the couch next to Sam that night, he didn’t crowd him, but he didn’t force a foot and a half between them as he had the week before. Sam looked up, eyes wide, and Dean could almost believe he was more startled than afraid. At least Sam kept his eyes on Dean’s now, and he hadn’t immediately angled his body away or drawn in on himself.

“Hey, Sam,” Dean said, placing his hands on his own knees. “There’s something I should talk to you about.”

Sam drew in a breath, almost inaudibly. “About the—rules?”

“No—well, yeah, sorta. About part of one.” The intensity of Sam’s gaze was a byproduct he hadn’t expected of  _that_ rule. He could feel it on the verge of unnerving, reminding him how seriously Sam took his words, how careful Dean had to be now. Dean had always thought himself a pretty smooth talker, but he was nowhere near smart enough for now, when Sam’s life and well-being hung in the balance.

~

Dean looked troubled. Not as closed-off and unhappy as he had recently, but more weighed down than before the package had arrived. Sam didn’t know exactly what it was, though he assumed it was the book Dean had been reading the last few days. It wasn’t any of Sam’s business, of course, and he would never so much as spy on the cover without Dean’s permission, but it made him nervous. He tried very hard not to think of what it might be, of all the possible objects and instructions Hunter Singer could have sent Dean. Dean had said Bobby was a good old friend, an excellent hunter, and Sam could vaguely remember seeing him once or twice around camp—always moving toward Special Research or Administration—and only once in an interrogation room. Even then, Sam had never seen him hurting any freak, even his worthless self.

In spite of this, or maybe because of the mystery, Sam couldn’t stop worrying.

Dean took a breath, placing his fingertips carefully together. “Y’know the Rule—whichever one about not letting anyone hurt you—”

“Rule Three,” Sam said.

“Right, and the one about telling me what you like—

“Rule Four.”

“Yeah, exactly. Well, I’m going to add something.”

Sam held his breath instinctively, waiting to take in every word Dean said, even as his mind (stupid, freak mind) raced ahead with all the different possibilities. _Punishments don’t apply. I’m the exception to both rules, you keep your mouth shut no matter what. Haha, just ignore Rule Three, that was a joke to see if a stupid freak like you would believe it._

Somehow, he heard everything Dean might say in Victor’s voice.

Dean exhaled slowly, closed his eyes, and, in a flash of panic, Sam remembered the night he thought Dean had broken a couple ribs, he was moving in so much pain. “You probably know...I like touching you, Sam. I’ve done more of that than I should, and I know that now, and I’m...sorry, I really am, for whenever I pushed you too much, crossed lines I shouldn’t. The last thing—the very last fucking thing I want to do—” Dean was so emphatic here, pressing forward with each word, his green eyes boring into Sam’s, that Sam was gripped with the deadly, terrifying awareness that this was vitally important, he  _had_ to understand, even though he really didn’t yet, “is put you in any situation where you don’t like what’s going on. Do you understand that, Sam?”

Sam swallowed hard. He didn’t know what Dean meant by times he “pushed” Sam too much—unless he meant the one night he shook him, and Sam had barely felt that, and definitely deserved it, anyway, for spilling the peas and being so stupid that he upset Dean. He wished he could say he understood, but he really really didn’t, and he couldn’t lie to Dean.

Dean must have seen the confusion in his face. “Because that counts, Sam. Anytime I...I put my hands on you, even if it’s a single finger, any way you don’t like, that counts as hurting you, and you’ve  _got_ to stop me.”

“But Dean, you haven’t...” Anguished, Sam lifted his hands, almost covering his eyes, before remembering, stopping himself, and forcing his eyes to stay on Dean’s. “You don’t do that, Dean. You never have.”

Dean regarded him, unconvinced. Sam felt despondency taking hold of him—not the leaden, numb hopelessness he’d always felt before, but an acute pain as something precious ( _how had he dared let it become precious to him_ ) threatened to tear away. And this was even more horrible because it was so backwards—Dean wasn’t threatening to take his touch away because he’d found out how much Sam liked it, but because...

Sam shuddered in a breath, rocking back and forth involuntarily as he struggled to force the words out. “When...when you t-touch me—like you did the other day, after I broke—I...I feel better, like it’s—easier to breathe, and I don’t have to worry about a-anyone, or.... It helps, Dean. It helps so much.”

“Okay.” Dean caught Sam’s hands, and Sam stopped rocking. He exhaled shakily. “Okay. Like this?”

Sam nodded, unable to speak, too shaken by his own vulnerability.

“Okay.” Dean squeezed Sam’s hands. “But even if you like this now, there may be times when you don’t, and that’s okay, Sam. That’s okay. It doesn’t mean I’ll never touch you again, it just means you want hands off right then, and I  _want_ to know, I really do. Rule...Four, right? You just have to say one word, or make a noise, even pull away a little and I’ll get it, and give you some room. Promise you’ll let me know, Sam. Do you promise?”

Sam swallowed. He couldn’t fathom the scenario, much less how he would comply, but with Dean looking that desperate and sincere, he didn’t have a choice. “Yes, Dean. I promise.”

“Good.” Dean sighed, as though in relief, and didn’t let go of Sam’s hands. “Thank you, Sam.”

~*~

Sam wouldn’t have believed, a week ago, that things could improve so much. He hadn’t known where they were headed, the night Dean shouted at him after the peas, but he hadn’t thought they’d come back to a place where Dean would pull him close on the couch and  _let_ Sam stay there, against Dean’s side. Where Dean would finally give him Rules to follow, even if they were strange and daunting (though that wasn’t really anything new for Rules). Where Dean looked  _happy_  again, and not like being near Sam caused him pain.

Dean still went out, though now it was for runs and not drinking at night. Sam had started waking up early, too, listening for Dean, then leaving his room to say good morning. He’d get a bowl of cereal, because Dean liked to see him eating even though he waited until after his run and shower for his own breakfast. While he was in the shower, Sam would start the coffee just like Dean had shown him, and he’d make a pile of toast for both of them.

The morning after they talked about Rule Three, Sam came out as Dean was tying his tennis shoes.

Dean grinned up at him. “Hey, Sam. I was thinking. How about we paint the whole apartment green, right now?”

Sam considered this carefully. “No, Dean.”

Dean beamed and came over to pull Sam to him in a half-hug. For a moment, Sam thought Dean was going to press his lips to Sam’s forehead, but he didn’t. Dean released him and headed for the door, calling, “Forty-five minutes, tops.”

Every morning, Sam recited the Rules in his head, but this morning he had to add what Dean had said last night. It was harder than expected. Not the words: he could summon up Dean’s exact phrasing if he had to, but he had trouble distilling the conversation they’d had to a core Rule. Was it  _Anytime I put my hands on you, even if it’s a single finger in any way you don’t like, that counts as hurting you, and you’ve got to stop me_? And then he told Sam specifically what “stop me” meant:  _You just have to say one word, or make a noise, even or pull away a little, and I’ll get it, and give you some room_. And he made  _Sam_ promise. It worried him that Dean would accept his promise—the word of a freak didn’t mean anything—but Sam couldn’t fix that, so he focused exclusively on the Rules.

He understood the words, but couldn’t understand why Dean thought the new parts were so important. Especially since Dean had never touched Sam in a way he didn’t like, and Sam didn’t think he could recognize the situation if it happened. How would Dean know? Rules Three and Four were difficult and uncertain anyway.

Then an idea hit Sam like Kayla’s elbow jabbed into his ribs. Maybe he could...ask Dean. Talk to him. Find out exactly what he meant Sam to do, who he wanted Sam to hit if someone tried to hurt him.

It took the rest of Dean’s run and the eight minutes of his shower for Sam to convince himself this was feasible, that nothing bad would happen because he admitted he hadn’t fully understood the first time, that he needed Dean’s help. It was difficult to overcome the old fear and training, despite all of Dean’s kindness in the last few weeks.

Sam waited until after they’d finished the toast and coffee, as well as the scrambled eggs Dean had thrown together (more than enough food for just one meal, but Sam had learned it was best to stop remembering _before_ , stop comparing). He waited for Dean to bring out his book and join him on the sofa, and then he turned to face him, took a deep breath, and opened his mouth.

~

“Dean...I have a question.” Sam was facing him on the couch, one leg drawn up under him, hands folded tightly in his lap. But he met Dean’s eyes, despite all the hesitancy and apprehension written on his face. This wasn’t easy for either of them yet.

Dean turned to him, giving Sam his full focus and determination. “Lay it on me.”

Sam took a deep, rallying breath. “R-rule Three.”

Dean rubbed behind his ear, trying and failing to recall. “Uh, right. Which one was that?”

“If someone is hurting me and I mean in any way I slug the bastard,” Sam recited at top speed. “If they look at me funny or snort or something I hit them hard until they stop—even if it’s y-you.” At the end he faltered, twitching as his eyes fell, but he raised them immediately back to Dean’s, swallowing visibly.

Shit. Dean had known, deep down, this was likely, if not inevitable—Sam taking the rules way too seriously, to the point of hurting himself. But this was good, anyway, Sam was coming to him instead of doing something horrible to himself especially when Dean couldn’t see. The rules had to work, they had to help, even if they took some adjustment. That’s why Sam had come to him, after all. He could not afford to think about what kind of dead end they were at if they  _didn’t_ work. “Yeah,” he said at last. “What—what about that one, Sam?”

Sam took in another slow breath and shut his eyes for a few seconds, though he re-opened them to speak. “I-I don’t understand. I mean...I understand the  _words_ , but...I don’t know what you mean. Wh-who am I supposed to hit? If they hurt me, or...look at me?”

Dean took his time before answering. “I mean anyone, Sam. When we go out, and if I’m not watching—and I’m going to do my damn best to watch out for any assholes and keep them away from you, but if I—if one of them ever slips through, you defend yourself. I don’t care if it’s some guy who lives down the street, or works in a store, or passing in the park.”

Sam’s face went a shade whiter, though his eyes never left Dean’s. “You mean r-reals.”

“People. Yeah. Anyone. No one has the right to hurt you, Sam.”

Sam flinched back, his control breaking. He squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head rapidly, then covered his face with his hands. Dean reached for him, pulling his hands down and holding them within his own. He swallowed hard, seeing how raggedly Sam was breathing.

“I mean it,” Dean said, more forcefully.  _“No one_. That means civilians, monsters, or hunters.” He thought about the bastards he’d met hunting, the guards laughing at jokes he had barely understood as a child but made his blood burn now. “ _Especially_  hunters.”

At that, Sam keened, a sound of abject shock, horror and despair, and Dean pulled him in close. “Hey, hey, I know. They—they hurt you. I’m not gonna let them anywhere near you, but if they ever touch you again, Sam—”

“ _Dean_ ,” he begged, and there was a sob just underneath. “They’ll call—they’ll call the ASC...”

Dean rested his hand on the back of Sam’s head. “Shhh. Okay, don’t worry about hunters yet. I’m not letting them near you, I swear to God. But you have to know, Sam, you have my permission—no, an  _order_ —to fight back if those sonsofbitches try to hurt you. I won’t be mad at you if you can’t, but if you do, you won’t get in trouble. And if you can’t, just try to get away, call for help, something.”

“Can’t, can’t, they’ll h-hurt you if I...I’m sorry, so sorry.”

Dean smiled sadly. Sam hadn’t apologized at all yesterday, cutting the words off every single time. But he’d decided to use them now, when Dean was telling him he should protect himself. Fuck, this hurt. “They can try,” he said. “But they won’t be able to. And, hey, there won’t be hunters, Sam. Boulder is clean, and no one is going to be visiting. Tell you what, we’ll take this in baby steps.”

Sam choked, or maybe laughed. It was hard to tell. “B-baby steps?”

“We’ll leave the house, you and me. Maybe go to the park or something.”

Sam shuddered in his arms. “C-can’t hit a real.”

“Hey, I’m not asking you to!” Dean pulled his head up. “But if a frisbee tries attacking you again, you’re going to beat that flying sucker into the ground, right?”

For one awful second, Dean thought that Sam was going to just keep staring at him blankly, like not one of his words made any sense. The he ducked his head against Dean’s chest and just...breathed. “I can do that,” he said into Dean’s shirt.

Brave or foolish, Dean couldn’t decide, as his fingers brushed through Sam’s hair. “Awesome, Sam,” he said, “That’s what I’m talking about.”

He hadn’t been going to push for the park that same day, but Sam actually brought it up after the breakfast dishes were done.

“Would t-today be a good day...” He glanced out the window to the sunlit street and took deep, shaky breath. “It’s nice,” he offered.

Dean was an idiot, but not that dense. Not when he could still see the tear tracks from their earlier conversation. He squashed the immediate impulse to keep Sam inside—and safe. That wasn’t going to help either of them. “Well, I guess. It’s a Tuesday, should be less crowded. You  _want_ to?”

Sam searched his face, a careful scrutiny he performed every time Dean asked him something now, looking to see if  _this_ was the time he was supposed to say no. Dean bore it out, because this stage wasn’t going to be easy on either of them. Baby steps.

“Yes,” he said at last.

Dean nudged some of Sam’s newest books with his knee. “Maybe you could bring some books, read on the grass, catch some rays.” He’d skimmed one of Sam’s health books from the library and been reminded of stuff about the importance of sunlight for vitamin D and endorphins—which Sam could use as much as he could get. “We could even drive, make it real easy to get there. Bring lunch.”

Sam looked down at his book, ran his thumb over the page in a gentle, nearly reverent gesture. Then he looked back up and actually smiled. Small, tentative, but there. “Okay, Dean. I’d like that.”

“Awesome.” Dean squeezed Sam’s hand once and didn’t miss the flood of color that washed over Sam’s face, the way he dropped his eyes for a couple seconds before meeting Dean’s again. Dean grinned back at him. “That’s cool, Sam. Grab your stuff.”

It was definitely a much better day for visiting the park, Dean decided. Far fewer people, and he was far less of a dumbass than the first time. And Sam, too—Sam was handling everything so much better, though Dean carefully steered them away from a distant group playing frisbee, just in case.

They stayed away from the built-in amphitheatre Sam had fallen down, too, heading away from the trails, toward the sprawling trees and ample grass in between. Dean suggested that Sam pick one, keeping his tone nonchalant— _all the same to me, no preference here_ —to make it clear it was all the same to Dean. Sam hesitated for a minute, then chose a large cottonwood in the middle.

Dean spread a large towel right on the edge of the shade, taking the half in the direct sun. He stripped off his shirt and stretched out on his back, sunglasses on and hands behind his head, while Sam settled down in the partial shade.

It was actually a lot nicer than he’d expected. They’d brought a couple cokes, four sandwiches, and Sam’s books in a spare duffel, the weather was just right, and without the shrieking crowds that had been there last time, he could have dozed off right there, knowing he could just crack open his eyelids and see Sam sitting next to him, reading contentedly (and watching Dean too, hell yes, he had caught those looks).

It was beautiful and almost perfect, so he really shouldn’t have been surprised when it ended.

The first warning was a whistle blast, followed by the laughter and chatter of a crowd approaching. Dean opened his eyes, saw Sam had turned his head, and sat up.

The couple dozen people were somewhere in their late teens and wore matching black and gold T-shirts. Their leader, a stacked blond with the same matching shirt, also wore an oversized Dr. Seuss hat ( _Cat in the Hat_ , Dean thought vaguely), a shiny red cape, and a backpack slung over her shoulder. She was twirling a baton with more enthusiasm than skill and marched ahead of the group like she’d just escaped from a Saturday morning cartoon. She stopped abruptly, waved the baton dramatically, and then dropped into a crouch. Five or six of the followers dropped immediately after her, with the rest mostly following suit in a couple seconds, and a couple stragglers joining the huddle slowly and with an obvious lack of enthusiasm.

The group spread out in a circle, holding hands—oh, some of the guys didn’t like that—then lay down, all at once, except for the leader, who sat upright in the middle. She blew her whistle and shouted something, and one of the guys jumped to his feet, grabbed something from the leader, and took off running across the lawn. The Dr. Seuss girl blew her whistle again, and this time a girl jumped up and did the same thing, though she ran in the opposite direction.

“What,” Sam said. “What are they doing?”

“Something I definitely didn’t know about before I decided to move to Boulder.”

Sam shifted, and the book slid off his lap. When Sam didn’t catch it—he was twisting his hands together again—Dean laid his hand on top of them. Feeling Sam’s hands relaxing under his made Dean feel better, less uptight about this than he could have. They were still all right.

“B-but what is it?”

“Peer pressure, Sam.” Dean squinted at the kids. Most of them had run off by this time, and it looked like the leader was getting down to her least-willing participants. He abruptly realized that it was mid-August. About the time the school year started up. And Boulder had a university. Fuck. ”It’s gotta be part of the college crap. For the fish.”

Sam glanced at him. “Fish? You mean like...” He wiggled his hand in a vague swimming motion.

“Freshmen,” Dean amended. “Kids starting their first year of college. They do all these touchy-feely bonding games.” And this wouldn’t be the end of it. The fraternities would start up soon, and he’d been to enough college parties—research, absolutely all research—to know that Sam and affectionate first-year hazing would go together like 18th-century lace and gasoline.

He stood, while Sam watched the Cat-in-the-Hat girl with morbid fascination, and pulled on his shirt. “Sam, let’s take off before she starts offering us green eggs and ham or something.”

“That would be bad,” Sam agreed, getting up and sliding his book into the duffel. “Especially since we just ate sandwiches  _without_ mold.”

Dean suspected Sam didn’t get the reference. “You hungry still?”

Sam shook his head. “No. The sandwiches were delicious.”

The walk out of the park wasn’t so bad, even though they kept seeing more groups of students-to-be running around. It looked like each group had a theme, and there were far too many of them. Dean breathed a sigh of relief when they finally got out of the park to the Impala.

“Hey, Sam.”

“Yes, Dean?”

“Let’s have nothing but cheese dip for dinner.”

Sam looked confused. “But we don’t have any—no. No, Dean.”

Dean grinned and made the Impala purr to life. “That’s what I want to hear.”

~*~

Nothing went fast. Dean didn’t really know why he expected it to. Whether staking out a witch’s house or waiting in an emergency room to find out if Dad was going to be okay, nothing went fast in his life—except the moments that were immediately terrifying, and he supposed that he was grateful that they hadn’t had any of those yet.

Dean kept reading Bobby’s book, though at this point he found himself skipping some sections—too hard to think about—and lingering over others that offered more hope. He knew he was looking for quick answers (and, damn, had John chewed his ass when he discovered Dean looking for a guy with GED answers for sale) and wasn’t going to find them in those white pages or in Sam’s wary eyes.

Still, it was easier every day. Comfortable, in a danger-could-be-anywhere kind of way. Dean even found himself smiling without knowing exactly why. Once, when Sam looked up, Dean didn’t even notice he was staring until Sam smiled, a slight, honest quirk of the lips that made Dean grateful all over again that he’d called Bobby instead of just drinking himself insensible and getting run over by a monster truck or something. Nothing was perfect, and Dean couldn’t pretend it was all going to work out instantly. But it was seriously getting better every day.

It was late on a Thursday evening, just a little bit over one month since they had arrived in Boulder. Dean left the kitchen after doing the dishes, beer in hand—he drank two or three a night sometimes, but hadn’t had anything stronger since that last truly fucked-up binge—and couldn’t keep the smile off his face when he looked at Sam half-buried in his latest book.

It was a coffee table book or something—big enough to  _be_ a coffee table, if someone attached little legs to it—and had a big picture of white-capped mountains on the front cover. Sam looked so fixated, Dean would have worried the book was a matter of life and death, if the expression hadn’t turned, briefly, to wide-eyed wonder every time he turned the page.

Dean watched, enjoying the peace. Then he realized that Sam hadn’t turned the page in at least a minute.

Dean cleared his throat and took a sip of his beer, trying to keep his voice casual even over the sudden plummet of his stomach. “Whatcha reading, Sam?”

Sam looked up, blinking in surprise, and then  _blushed_. He dropped his eyes, visibly remembered, and then raised them up again, cheeks pink. “Not really reading,” he said, holding Dean’s eyes with such utter strength that—between that and the blush, god damn—it knocked Dean’s breath away.

He had to cough a couple times to get his heart rate back under control. “Not reading? But it’s a book. Whatcha doing, then?” He set the beer on the table and came to sit down. Released, Sam dropped his eyes.

The book was open to a full double-page spread showing the St. Louis arches at night, silhouetted against a dark city background with brilliant, flowering fireworks splashed across the sky. Sam’s fingers were almost reverent as they slid over the glossy page.

Looking down at the photo, Dean realized that Sam hadn’t been there. Sam hadn’t been anywhere except a shithole prison in Nevada, a handful of places in Boulder, and this apartment. Dean had promised him so much more.

“It’s beautiful,” Sam whispered. “I like...I like just looking sometimes.” He glanced at Dean, and then down again, wetting his lips. “Just looking without reading or...anything else.”

It wasn’t so much a plan as the knowledge that they  _could, so why the hell not?_  Nothing was holding them there. Nothing could really stop them from anything they wanted. And the only thing keeping Sam cooped and confined was Dean’s fear.

Dean grabbed Sam’s hand and pulled him up from the couch. “Let’s go,” he said. “Let’s go see it.”

Sam stared. “Go...where? Dean?”

“Here, Sam!” Dean rapped the book with his knuckles and couldn’t keep the grin off his face. “I’ll show you the arch, the Great Lakes. I’ll show you Grand fucking Canyon.”  _Because you deserve it all, Sam._

“I....” Sam looked nervous, staring, and Dean realized maybe this wasn’t what Sam wanted. Bobby’s book had said sometimes people close to the survivors could project their own desires and shit onto them, and that might be what he was doing right here, putting his foot in it and pushing Sam where he didn’t have the resources—yet—to go. Dean backpedaled, fast.

“I mean, that is, if you...” He took a deep breath and let go of Sam’s hand. Just because they didn’t go today didn’t mean that they couldn’t ever leave. There would be other days, and what Sam needed was most important, even if every day Dean remained in Boulder felt like picking the scab off a wound. “Only if you want to, Sam.”

Sam swallowed. “Want to...what?” he asked carefully.

Dean waved a hand in the general direction of the book. “Go there. Go everywhere.” _Just like I promised you._

“Like...like the pictures you used to bring? Is this a ‘no’ question?”

“No, Sam, I promise this is serious. You can say no if you want, but yeah, it’s like the pictures I used to bring.”

Sam turned and looked at the book. Dean saw his throat work, and his hands clench. “C-can we? Am I allowed....” He shook his head. “Yes, Dean. I want to. If we can.”

And just like that, Dean felt a grin break across his face. He wanted to grab Sam and hug him, kiss him senseless. But all he did was squeeze Sam’s shoulder. “Awesome. Let’s go. Right now.”

Sam stared when Dean rushed to his room. He found the spare duffel they’d brought to the park, dumped the towel out on his bed, and brought the empty bag to Sam. “Here, you can pack your stuff in here.”

Sam blinked at the bag. “What should I bring?”

Dean spread his arms wide and couldn’t stop grinning. “Everything! It’s an adventure.”

“Like...clothes? Toothbrush?”

“Yes and yes, anything you want. Hell, you can probably fit all your worldly possessions in there. We haven’t bought you nearly enough stuff, even by my standards.”

Sam stared at the bag, and then slowly raised his eyes. Dean was almost giddy to see that he was smiling. “Yeah. I can fit it all in here.”

“Awesome.” Dean let the elation, the whirlwind of action overcome him, and he pulled Sam close for a hug, and a brush of his lips over Sam’s temple, before he let him go. “Gotta get my own stuff ready, Sam. Be back out here in fifteen?”

Sam’s cheeks were pink, and his smile hadn’t faltered an inch. “Yes, Dean.”

They were ready in forty-six minutes, and ran long only because Dean decided they should throw all their food in the Impala, too. They tossed their duffels in the back seat, cereal and fruit on top of them, and a spare blanket and Dean’s armory in the trunk. They chugged the rest of the milk and orange juice—straight from the bottles and ice cold—and Dean tucked the last two beers under his seat, and quizzed Sam on the stuff he’d brought, making sure he had clothes, toothbrush, and at least one of the books from Dean’s shelf.

They swung by the library on the way out of town and dumped Sam’s books in the book-drop. Dean had no idea when they were coming back to Boulder—didn’t want to think that far ahead—and Sam had refused to keep his books past the due date. Small delay, but it made Sam smile again, like his world was fucking perfect right then, and Dean would have done a hell of a lot more for a look like that.

By midnight they were roaring along I-70 east, leaving the lights of Denver behind them. It was a dark, clear road, empty but for a couple semis, and Dean reveled in the purr of the car beneath them, his hands on the wheel, and the vast expanse of emptiness and freedom before them. Best of all, Sam was right next to him, so close that Dean could almost hear his breathing under the low croon of the Rolling Stones, and safe.

Dean drove, and Sam eventually fell asleep with his head against the window, and the stars burned as bright as the possibilities before them.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back. :) Will be posting every other Friday again, for we hope at least five more chapters (which will be roughly another 50,000 words, mind you) before another break.
> 
> Also, I am thrilled to say our beta, whereupon, has been writing the most gorgeous timestamps for our 'verse (they're seriously some of my favorite scenes), and they'll be posted in between our chapters, so keep an eye on this series.

Two weeks since they left Boulder. Two weeks of driving towards the rising sun, of rushing landscapes — infinite shades of green flashing by, more than Sam had noticed even in Boulder, and fields dotted with many more colors—and Dean's music humming along his bones while Dean drummed on the wheel, singing because he must be  _happy_ , in the Impala, with Sam, or maybe, possibly, both. Two weeks of flying through half-a-dozen towns every day, riding unending gray and black highways that stretched on forever before them, smooth and sure and promising to carry them anywhere Dean thought to take them. Sam had studied American geography, he knew the distance in miles, but he was tempted to believe this gently changing land, these hills and plains, these people, were infinite, or covered at least half the globe.   
  
Every day Dean made numerous pit stops to refill the tank, clean the windshield and swipe bug-smears off the hood with a spare cloth, hit the restroom, and stock up on snacks and drinks, but he never left Sam for a second. When Sam came out of the restroom, Dean always had some excuse to be dawdling by the door; when Sam was staring at the almost endless options of food and drink, Dean never stepped away into the sections of clothes and magazines but kept so close that Sam could feel him at his back, could feel Dean’s smile on his skin even when he wasn’t looking at him.   
  
And it seemed like everywhere they stopped, the reals were cheerful, happy and  _nice_ , like the people in Boulder. They even smiled at him—from what Sam glimpsed before he dropped his eyes—and he wished he could smile back. He knew Dean would have liked him to look, but it was as though he had a guard shoving his head down every time their gaze fell on him. He’d worried, at first, that Dean would know and be angry that Sam understood what he wanted and wasn’t doing it (the Director would have had him flogged for the implied disobedience), but he gradually realized, with every brilliant smile and reassuring touch on his arm, that Dean was happy enough when Sam managed the little things. Getting out of the car without being told. Answering simple questions _("What would you like to drink?" "Hot, isn't it?")_  from reals, even if he stuttered over the single-word response. These triumphs seemed small; Sam knew they were a fraction of what he was capable of, if it was for Dean, and felt close to panic sometimes—not as bad as it had been those first few weeks in Boulder, but still clogging his throat, twisting in his chest like straps compressing his ribs.   
  
But something was always changing now, and it was good to have distractions. As soon as Sam felt the walls closing in, those walls fell away and new corridors led out. When he knew the people in the latest little town were watching them (probably knowing what he was and everything he’d done), they left them behind and found new people down the road. And Dean, Sam’s one constant, the only person he needed, was there ( _Time to hit the road, again, Sammy_ ) driving the fear away.   
  
Even in the hours when Dean was quiet as he drove, no sound but the hum of tires over pavement, Sam felt...he wasn't sure how to define it. He didn't want to call it happiness—a freak didn’t deserve to be this happy, not for this long—but there was a lightness in him, a sureness that this was  _right_ , and it all came back to Dean. Dean belonged in the Impala, on the road. Sam was sorry Dean had tried to stay fixed in one place as long as he had, especially if he had stayed in Boulder for  _Sam_ . It felt so much better out here, on the road, with new places, limitless highways, eternal horizons.   
  
They drove east—north and south across the states, but always heading east—and Sam kept the map spread out in his lap so he could run his finger along the highways, the snaky country roads, and match names to the signs flashing by. He could say  _we're here, and we'll be here by nightfall_ , and watch Dean beam at him, like Sam ever needed to know where he was besides that he was with Dean.   
  
They didn’t dawdle much in the towns, but when they had lunch at a diner in Massillon, Ohio, Sam noticed a flier for the BARRY ASKREN LIBRARY BOOK SALE (that week, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.) pinned to the bulletin board behind the counter.   
  
Dean followed his gaze. “Wanna check it out?”   
  
Sam kept his hand still on his fork, wondering. He first, always, considered the possibility that this was a No question; and then whether Dean would really take him there, maybe even pay money for books for Sam. Sam tried not to think about how much money Dean had spent on him already, for the food and the hotel rooms and the extra gas needed to carry him in the Impala, all for which he’d got nothing in return. He didn’t want to ask Dean for more, because he didn’t need more, he needed nothing but Dean, and yet because Dean had asked...   
  
“Do you want to?” Sam asked, hesitantly, and lifted his eyes as he spoke; but it was only to see Dean’s mouth twist in a way that was not happy. Not the right answer.   
  
Dean leaned forward across the table, and Sam fought not to pull back. “I’m asking you, Sam. I’m happy to take you if you want to go.”   
  
Sam bit his lip and dropped his gaze—Dean wouldn’t mind for that moment, and he needed to focus, needed to clear worry out of his thoughts for just a second to decide what he...wanted. Dean had looked so earnest. “We—we can go,” Sam forced out. The words did not come easily. “We can look.”   
  
Dean sat back, and he looked relieved, though Sam wasn’t sure why. If Dean had wanted to go, he didn’t need to ask Sam.   
  
When the waitress came by with their check, Dean asked for directions to the library, and Sam listened close to her answer, too, in case Dean wanted to ask him later.   
  
The book sale filled the little park outside a large stone building—not as big as the Boulder library, but still many times bigger than the one in Administration—and Sam could have spent hours just looking at the stone structure, the architecture, the tall shelves of books he could see through the second floor window, and the bright beds of flowers wrapping around the borders of the building. But the sidewalks were lined with carts and folding tables piled high with books, empty cardboard boxes stacked on each end, and signs proclaiming FILL A BOX FOR $5.   
  
Sam stopped before the array, awed just by the number of books, the possibility of  _purchasing_ so many, and the few reals walking around, picking up and flipping through books like they already owned them all. Like reals owned everything, which they did.   
  
Dean broke Sam’s daze by stepping forward, picking up an empty box and pushing it toward Sam’s chest. Sam grabbed it reflexively. “Go on,” Dean said. Sunglasses hid his eyes, but his small smile was one of the rare, openly gentle ones that could stop Sam’s breath.   
  
Sam didn’t know where to begin. It was hard enough to believe he could really reach out and  _take_ any of these books, put it in the box and keep it as his own, even if Dean paid for it. Worse, that he might take books that reals wanted. He didn’t know what to pick, what he  _wanted_ , even though he had more practice now at wanting things. Every day, Dean asked him what he wanted on his toast, if he wanted diet or regular coke, whether he wanted cheese on his hamburger.   
  
But books were more important, and Sam could feel the old habit of not wanting things, of hiding anything he did want so that it wouldn’t be taken away, crawling over his skin. He wanted to want, but couldn’t quite find the words to admit it.   
  
But Dean was there, always there, in this like in everything. Dean picked up books at random, reading the backs, snorting at them, passing them to Sam. He handed Sam a little of everything—paperback novels, ancient books with broken spines and the titles worn away, a textbook on marine biology—telling him to “Check this out, Sam. Sound good?” and keep it if he wanted it. Before Sam knew it, his box was nearly full, and Dean had another box under his arm—Sam hadn’t known Dean wanted books, too—and Sam felt dazed and nervous and happy.   
  
When no more space was left in either box, Dean stacked them together and handed ten dollars to the librarian sitting at a table in the middle—highlighting key passages in a book about gophers, between customers—then he came back, heaved both boxes up, and walked with Sam back to where they’d parked the Impala.   
  
He stowed both boxes in the backseat, turned to Sam, and said, “These should last you a couple of days, right? I mean, there’s got to be at least thirty books there, with really small print, and you can probably count that fat one about zoology as two, just because it’s such a fucking awkward shape. I’m glad she let us get away with kind of shoving the corner in there, you know? Otherwise we’d have had to get a different box if you were really set on learning about a day in the life of a wasp."   
  
Sam felt his mouth fall open, though words failed to immediately come. He glanced, astonished, at the two boxes of books, then back at Dean. “They’re b-both—but I thought some, the ones y-you picked up—”   
  
“Nah,” said Dean, and leaned against the open door, hands in his pockets. “I’ve read enough books in my life. You can fill me in on the good parts.”   
  
Sam couldn’t speak. He looked at the ground, knowing there was nothing he could say to thank Dean, repay him for his unbelievable generosity. Sam couldn’t possibly be good enough to deserve this. He didn’t have the words. He wasn’t sure the words existed.   
  
“Hey.” Dean reached out, pushed his knuckles lightly against Sam’s shoulder. “Ten bucks, no big deal. Just wait until I clean out my next poker game, Sammy. We’ll wipe out the next library sale down to the My Little Pony books. Unless you wanna check out those, too.”   
  
~*~   
  
Though they hadn’t had good days like that right away on the road. Even in new places, or with Dean humming with the Impala beneath his hands, sometimes Sam had thought, even been quite sure, he would fuck it all up. He was a monster, after all, and just because everything around him was good—the Impala, the real world, food, clothes, beds, and  _Dean_ —didn’t mean he couldn’t make Dean sad, angry, silent. Some days, Sam had believed, again, he would destroy whatever unnameable thing he and Dean had between them and never know how.   
  
The first night on the road, after they had seen the St. Louis arch (a silver band curving toward the sky, impossibly huge, smooth and beautiful, and so much  _more_ than it had been in the picture) and headed north and east, deeper into Illinois, Dean had pulled into a hotel parking lot somewhere between Springfield and Bloomington, and Sam had realized with a sinking sensation that they were checking in. They weren’t going back to Boulder tonight (he’d known that, of course, Dean couldn’t drive them that far again, Sam had noticed the dark circles under his eyes and copious cups of coffee he’d been consuming) or going to sleep in the solid security of the Impala.   
  
Sam shivered. Only once in his life had he and Dean stayed in a hotel, and that had been their first night, which had gone so horribly wrong. Even thinking about the fear, the catastrophic miscalculations he had made, how sure he had been that Dean was going to bring him back to FREACS, was enough to make him want to curl into a ball and beg.   
  
He didn’t let himself do it. It was better now; they were better now. Sam knew what Dean wanted, Dean had promised he would never bring him back, they had Rules, and it would be okay.   
  
But he was still terrified.   
  
It didn’t help when Dean brought the car to a stop before the motel office—the paint inside was worn, and Sam could see one fluorescent light flickering above the tall, off-white counter—and turned to Sam instead of getting straight out of the car. "So, uh, do you want—one bed or two?"   
  
Sam's mouth opened, even as his mind skittered back from the edge of a sheer drop. This wasn’t phrased as a No question. What was the right answer? What did Dean want? They'd only slept in the same bed those three precious nights, before he'd gotten sick and then Dean had been so angry at him. Even when he had decided to forgive Sam and make him more useful with Rules, he had never suggested sharing a bed again. Sam had already decided that those three nights had been a fluke, something too wonderful to hope for again, but he couldn't help but treasure the memory, even if Dean regretted it now. But why was Dean asking him now? Was this a test? Dean hadn’t changed the PG rule, and Sam didn’t know why else he would want him in his bed—just because Sam, a freak, felt safe and protected there didn’t mean that Dean had any reason to enjoy it. Was one option cheaper? Sam didn't  _know_ , and he couldn't force a single word out of his closed throat.   
  
Then Dean spoke, and Sam flinched at the tired tone of his voice. "Never mind, Sam, forget it." He got out of the car, and Sam was glad Dean didn’t see his twitch when the door shut. It wasn’t even that he was afraid. Dean was gone, and Sam felt familiar desolation washing out all other possible feelings. He sat with his head almost resting against the dash, trying to slow his frantic heartbeat to match his even breaths (lungs always so much easier to control than his heart) and wishing with all his being that he could have known what the right answer was.   
  
Apparently it had been two beds. Sam didn’t know why it felt like something was breaking apart inside him when he walked into the room and saw both beds with their neat coverlets; he shouldn’t have hoped for anything else, should he? He'd known this was what Dean wanted, so why hadn't Sam just said so when he asked?   
  
Dean had already dropped his bag onto the closer bed and was rummaging inside. Sam made himself walk to the further one, drop his bag onto it, but he had no more resources to keep up the pretense, so he sat down and dropped his face into his hands. Freaks didn't get to want things. Dean insisted Sam tell him what he preferred, what he liked to eat, but that didn't mean Sam could want something as enormous and precious and  _wrong_ as sleeping beside Dean through the night, with Dean touching him, let alone touch Dean back. Dirty thoughts like that shouldn't even cross his mind. He'd been taught his place, hadn't he? Just because Dean was so kind to him about many little things, that didn't change the bigger realities.   
  
"Sam?"   
  
He lifted his head, and almost threw himself backward on the bed when he saw Dean crouching in front of him. Dean raised a hand as though to stop Sam from moving, maybe support him, but stopped short and dropped it to his own knee. His forehead was knit into his most serious look, completely focused on Sam, and that attention simultaneously spiked the panic running underneath Sam’s skin  _(don’t let them notice you, never let them notice you)_  and, because it was Dean, helped him hold still, stay calm.   
  
"Sam," Dean said again, very low. "Can you tell me what's wrong?"   
  
Sam took a few deep breaths, pressing his fingertips to either side of the bridge of his nose. He wished he could. Dean so clearly wanted to help him, and Sam was desperately, pitifully grateful for that. But he didn't know what to say—the only words rising in his mouth were  _I'm sorry I'm so stupid and want things I shouldn't want, that I don't deserve, you've been so good to me_ . But he’d already used his apology for that day, and, besides, he knew now that Dean didn't want to hear that.   
  
So he struggled for other words that wouldn't be a lie. Maybe...Dean had never yet raged at Sam for asking questions. "I...I d-don't understand...why you asked one or, or two beds. If two was the r-right answer, what y-you want."   
  
"Sam." Dean stopped after his name, as though he too couldn’t find the words. Sam held perfectly still as Dean moved—as slowly as though Sam were a wild animal, capable of running away—and rested his hand over Sam’s. Dean’s hand was warm, and the pressure of his fingers curled over Sam’s own was barely there, the touch of morning sunlight on cold skin. “It’s not...what I want. It’s just—I want you to have your own space, okay? Like in the condo, you have your own room, and here, I could do that if you wanted, but...I want you to know you have a place that’s your own, and no one, not even me, is going to cross it unless you say that’s okay. Unless you say it, Sam. This isn’t about me, it’s about you, what you want, what you need. That’s why I got two beds.”  _I would do anything for you._   
  
"No." Sam could feel himself shaking again. He had to be imagining what he thought Dean was saying. Dean was wonderful, and perfect, and too good to be a part of Sam’s reality, but he couldn’t possibly have meant that last part Sam could have sworn he heard. That was just Sam—desperate, dirty, freak—inserting what he felt into Dean’s words. It couldn’t be true.   
  
But even while he fought with himself, struggled with old instincts and new possibilities, he found words forming on his tongue, what he wanted, what he felt, slipping out before he could stop their inexplicable fall. He could only hope they were the right ones, not that he really knew what those were anymore.   
  
"I don't want...Dean, I feel...s-safe...near you. When I can see you. And—" He swallowed, terrified that those three nights they had slept side by side were something Dean wanted to forget. "I feel safe with you," he repeated. He tried to hide how he shuddered saying the words, something he never would have dared admit to anyone else, and every instinct screamed at him not to say it now.   
  
Dean's grip tightened, and Sam dragged his eyes up to Dean’s face. He couldn’t name the emotion he saw there, but it helped Sam breathe, helped him minimize his shaking.   
  
"You feel safe with me?" Dean sounded shaken, and under that...as breathless as Sam. "You want to stay close to me, Sam —tonight?"   
  
Sam nodded, jerkily.   
  
"You trust me, Sam? You know I'm not going to...do anything to you, anything you don't want? The PG Rule’s still in effect, right?”   
  
Sam hadn't been entirely sure, but Dean’s words confirmed it, so he nodded again.   
  
Dean let out a long breath and brought Sam’s hand in, pressed Sam’s knuckles against his own chest, bowing his head over it like he was praying. Sam stared at him in wonder, feeling Dean’s warmth, his heartbeat, beneath the flannel of his shirt, until Dean lifted his head and smiled. "You know what, Sam? I really like having you next to me, too."   
  
Sam smiled back. He couldn't help it, those words made him feel light and almost dizzy with the happiness washing through him. Maybe this couldn’t be real, maybe it would all go horribly badly in a moment, but he didn’t have the strength to question his blessings now.   
  
Dean stood, still holding Sam’s hand, and he gave the back of it a quick rub with his thumb before letting go. He swayed forward, almost as though he wanted to kiss Sam—forehead, cheek, lips, God, maybe he would—but at the last moment, he pulled back. "Get ready for bed," he said, then grinned and tipped his head toward the second bed. “You can toss your stuff over on that one.”   
  
Sam moved quickly, focusing on each task to keep the lightheaded buzz under control. He showered and washed his face, fast but thorough, and brushed his teeth as swiftly as he had in FREACS, slipping into his flannel pants and T-shirt for sleeping, all movements fast and efficient. Until he set his hand on the bathroom door again. When he stepped out into the main room, he couldn’t—and didn’t bother to—hide the hesitancy, the nervousness. This could all go awry, and Sam wouldn’t be surprised. Broken, but not surprised.   
  
But Dean just smiled at him and brushed his shoulder against Sam's as he went into the bathroom. Heartened, Sam took a seat on the bed without any bags—Sam’s duffel was tucked up next to Dean’s on the other bed now—and rested his back against the headboard to wait, unwilling to get in before Dean. He flipped through a small binder of nearby attractions and available room service—continental breakfast 7:30-10 a.m., McVannen’s Knicknack Emporium and Woodworking Museum just five minutes away on County Road N—until Dean reappeared, hair damp from his shower.   
  
Dean sat on the other side of the bed, green eyes dark and possibly just a little worried. “You really okay with this? We could still...” He gestured vaguely at the other bed, and Sam felt fear crawl up his throat.   
  
He shook his head. “No, I w-want...”   
  
“Okay.” Dean stood and pulled down the covers on his side. “Come on, then.”   
  
Sam quickly obeyed, sliding beneath the covers while Dean got in next to him. When Dean nodded at the light, Sam, shaking, reached up to click it off, then turned his face toward Dean, holding himself very still. The muscles on his back felt tight enough to snap from one blow, the lightest touch.   
  
And then Dean actually touched him, reaching out with cautious fingers, brushing his temple, exploring his hairline, sliding down his cheek. It felt like forever since he had had this, been allowed to rest beside Dean and feel Dean’s warmth seeping into him. Sam let out a shaky sigh and felt himself relax utterly, completely, for the first time in what felt like hours. Maybe since he’d realized that morning that he would have to leave the safety of the Impala and couldn’t just stay with Dean within that safe metal shell for the rest of his life. He hadn’t let himself think he’d ever have this again.   
  
“You’d tell me — right, Sammy?” Dean’s fingertips glided, light as a warm breeze, across his jaw. “You’d tell me if this wasn’t okay, the second you want me to keep my hands to myself?”   
  
“Yes,” Sam said, because that was the Rule and of course he remembered, and he knew that was important now for him to tell Dean he remembered, important to make it continue. He was so close to him now; Sam would only have to turn his hand over and extend his fingers to touch Dean’s chest through his thin sleeping shirt. “But — it’s okay, Dean, it’s really okay.” And he dared, then, to open his hand and make contact.   
  
He felt Dean shudder on the exhale. "C'mere, Sam, c'mere," and Sam scrambled to meet him, into his arms, folding their limbs together. Then it wasn’t his hand but his entire body pressed against Dean, Dean’s arms wrapped around him so tight Sam couldn’t dream of getting loose, not that he would when now, here, at last, for what felt like the first time in his life, Sam was safe, safe, safe.   
  
Dean was murmuring his name over and over, soothing but choked at the same time, and Sam could do nothing but mouth  _Dean_ against the fabric over his chest and hold on.   
  
They fell asleep like that. Sam had no idea what Dean thought, having his arms wrapped around him, but for Sam, he was safe at last, secure in Dean’s grip, and  _nothing_ could pull him out. And he never wanted to leave.   
  
~*~   
  
As with so much of Dean's life with Sam, sleeping in the same bed was a mix of bliss and horror. Of course Dean fucking loved being able to touch Sam through the night (always PG, even if sometimes his body got other ideas), draping his arm around him and feeling Sam turn, even in his sleep, closer to him. But most of all, he basked in the assurance that Sam was right there with him, and  _safe_ . No more praying (as much as Dean ever did) that he wasn’t in pain or— _please, God, Mom, no_ —dead. When Dean felt the old dread creeping up on him, he could reach out a hand and  _touch_ Sam’s chest, feeling his lungs expand and contract, and breathe, himself.   
  
But there were definitely some aspects—even aside from the nightly struggle to keep Sam from noticing how close he was to breaking the PG rule—that got Dean's blood racing in entirely the wrong way. Most nights, Sam had nightmares—stifled whimpers in his sleep, small twitches and sounds Dean didn’t even have the words for—and about three nights a week, Sam woke up coughing and choking, hands clutching his throat, and whining and twisting like he was trying to keep off a noose. Dean didn’t have to be a genius to imagine those guard-sonsofbitches jerking Sam’s collar around, laughing while he struggled for breath.   
  
Dean wasn’t sure what was harder: fighting the urge to get up and fucking  _walk_ back to Freak Camp if he had to so he could blow those bastards’ motherfucking faces off, or soothing Sam when he was clearly more upset by Dean’s reaction than by the nightmares themselves.   
  
Yeah, days Sam woke up choking or sobbing, Dean got an entirely unnecessary wake-up shot of adrenaline. All in all, he much preferred coffee.   
  
At least Sam didn’t often say his name during the nightmares anymore. Dean knew, now, that Sam wasn’t dreaming about Dean hurting him, but hearing his name invoked akin to a prayer got Dean’s gut twisted up about as much as the victim of a shifter with an intestine fetish, because, fuck it,  _he hadn’t been there_ , not once when Sammy had really needed him.   
  
And through all of it—the nightmares, the panic attacks, the way Sam would stare into space sometimes like he had never left at all—Dean had to be so damn careful not to do anything that would just make it worse for both of them.   
  
At least now Sam could reach out for Dean, cry into his shirt like Dean was the only solid thing in a world of sand. For the first week and a half, when Sam came out of a nightmare, he hadn’t been able to do much besides gasp and shudder, barely responding when Dean touched or spoke to him—which had been scary as all fuck and had almost sent Dean scrambling for his notes on ghost-possession, possibly for Bobby’s speed dial. Now he broke down sobbing and clinging to Dean for dear life, which was no less awful in its own way, and also, selfishly, helped Dean feel less impotent against this threat he could neither see nor fight. Sam turned unhesitatingly  _to_ him as he cried, didn’t ask permission, and when Dean whispered half-true comforts ( _I’ll never let them hurt you again:_  true;  _it’ll all be all right:_  who the fuck knew?) and shushed him, and stroked his back as reassuringly as he could, it seemed to help.   
  
The general Winchester opinion about tears had been  _Suck it up and move along_ , but Dean remembered a section or two in Bobby’s book about how a key stage of healing was feeling safe enough to let it out. And Dean had enough memories of Dad pulling over before they were across state lines, or leaving his hand on Dean’s shoulder just a little longer than necessary when helping him into the car, to know that even Winchester principles had plenty of exceptions.   
  
Some nights after Sam’s bad nightmares, they got up and showered and watched re-runs of old sitcoms, ate continental breakfast as early as possible, and got the hell out. Other nights, Sam got back to sleep, and Dean’s best comfort was listening to Sam’s breath even out.   
  
~*~   
  
They ate at a lot of diners, restaurants, and sports bars. Dean might have tried to cook in Boulder, but, in his own words, if someone else was getting paid to slave away in the kitchen, why should he expose Sam to his own crap meals? Especially when most motel rooms had little more than a microwave and hot water.  _If_  that.   
  
Sam thought that the food Dean had made in Boulder had been fantastic, and restaurants kind of scared him—too many reals, too many possibilities for someone to recognize what he was. But he had to admit that every time that  _didn’t_ happen, every time they got burgers and fries at a greasy spoon mom-and-pop joint—sometimes Sam had no idea what Dean was talking about, none at all, the spoons were always perfectly fine—and no one pointed and started screaming about him being a freak and a monster or rushed away to call the ASC, every time the waitress smiled while Dean placed their order, Sam felt just that little bit more confident in himself and how he could survive in the real world. It was one thing for Dean to tell him that it would be fine, no one would notice Sam, and quite another to go into shop after shop, restaurant after restaurant, and not have a single person do more than glance at him.   
  
It was still hard, but getting better every day.   
  
A few days after the library book sale, at yet another diner—this one a little more full, the noise just on the edge of where Sam wanted to curl into a ball and hide, but not quite crossing that line yet—Dean unfolded his menu with a practiced flick of his wrist. “So, what do you think you want?”   
  
Sam looked at the neatly written blurbs. The bright pictures. The tiny notes about prices, sizes, cooking requirements and age restrictions, and he closed the menu again, putting it carefully on the table. He was breathing evenly. He was proud of himself.   
  
“Y-you can order for me,” he said. His brain was too full of words, pictures and  _food_ right there, utterly unreachable to a monster like him. Except, incredibly, it was reachable because Dean was right there across from him.   
  
But even with Dean’s presence, and Sam’s slowly developing tolerance for reals, Sam was still pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to look at the menu long enough to actually pick something out. There were simply too many options. Too many variables. And he had the sinking suspicion that even if he  _did_ manage to decide on one thing—with or without fries, soup, salad, vegetables, sauces, salsas, fruit cups, pancakes or muffins—and a drink and all the other details that every restaurant seemed to require, Dean would still want him to  _ask_ for it.   
  
He wouldn’t be punished. He wouldn’t lose the meal if he didn’t do it right—though sometimes he thought the confused, wary or irritated looks of the waitstaff were almost worse than skipping one meal in the dozens of delicious meals Dean fed him every week—but he hated the way he stuttered and shook, and how Dean’s hand clenched on the table, like  _he_ was the one suffering for every one of Sam’s mistakes.   
  
But unlike any sensible person or monster (maybe Dean was beyond these categories, because he was, after all,  _Dean_ ), Dean kept pushing for those moments, forcing Sam to the edge of his safe zone and urging him to take one more step out. Sam found it strange,  _still_ , to believe there would be no physical pain for a failure, that Dean wouldn’t beat him or even shout at him.   
  
Hard to believe, and yet every day it was true. And, slowly, he felt like some great weight he had never known he was under was releasing him bit by bit. And every time a little more of that pressure released…well, he was beginning to want that, too.   
  
For Dean, he would jump off a cliff or stare a guard in the eye. If Dean told him to, he would pick up the menu again and try to find something edible—it would all be edible  _and_ delicious, that was part of the problem, he didn’t  _deserve_ that (he’d have understood his options if there were a section marked “Freak Food” on the menu—but that was a stupid idea, because freaks weren’t supposed to be in restaurants at all)—even though the very idea made him shiver.   
  
But Dean didn’t ask. His fingers tightened on his menu, but Sam doubted anyone else noticed.   
  
“Okay. How about a cheeseburger, extra onions?”   
  
“That w-would be delicious, Dean.”   
  
“Or a salad? You liked that chef salad in Kendall, right? And the Greek one in Indy, though maybe with fewer of those weird, wet, leafy things.”   
  
“A-artichoke hearts.”   
  
“Yeah, those. Oh, hey, the soup looks good. Want a soup? Or soup  _and_ a sandwich. What’s the special — ugh, three cheese squash and bean soup, I don’t even want to think about that. Uh, though if you want to try it...”   
  
If Dean didn’t like it, or didn’t like the sound of it, Sam didn’t particularly want to try it. But he would do anything for Dean. “If you think I sh-should, Dean.”   
  
“Yeah, well, there’s lots of other stuff, too. Hmmm, smothered baked potato. Oh, you can get extra sour cream on it. That would put some meat on your bones, Sam. You like those?”   
  
“Maybe.” Sam was fairly sure he’d tried everything Dean had just mentioned, but it was hard sometimes to keep track of which vegetables and sauces were which, especially if they were just a side dish and Dean was in the middle of a story. And that was assuming the food itself wasn’t flavorful and rich enough to distract Sam from asking Dean what each was called so he’d remember.   
  
Dean looked discouraged. “Yeah. Well, maybe not then. There’s steak. Want a steak, Sam?”   
  
Sam risked a glance into the menu. Shut it again. Yes, the steaks were as expensive as he had thought. “That’s r-really expensive. Do you want one?”   
  
“No, I’m asking…how about a malt, something basic to start us off?”   
  
“I don’t know, Dean.” Even getting anxious—Sam vaguely understood that Dean was trying to get him to make a choice, but Sam didn’t know which way Dean wanted him to push at this point—Dean never looked like he was going to lash out. Sam had never felt safer when someone was testing him. Dean kept on his side of the table, didn’t move toward his weapons, and Sam knew that eventually they would order and food would come and Dean would relax again and start some story about a hunt he’d done, an idiot he’d hustled. No matter how twitchy and sad he looked now, in half an hour he would be easy, happy, smiling, and that smile would be turned on Sam, and be  _for_ Sam.   
  
Every time Dean asked him what he want, Sam felt that old frisson of fear, that foreboding that he wouldn’t have the right answer. But at this point he knew that even if he messed up this moment, he would not lose the most important thing, which was always Dean.   
  
Dean sighed, frustration and irritation hissing out of him.   
  
“Dammit, Sam,” he said without heat. “Is there anything you  _do_ like?”   
  
Sam could have said almost anything, from  _Yes_ to a list of foods that he had tried and sincerely wanted to eat again—garlic chicken pizza, eel sushi, or artichoke cheese dip (Dean had  _insisted_ that Sam could like things he didn’t, but Sam wasn’t going to test that theory yet).   
  
But the very first thing he thought was  _I like being with you_ .   
  
Dean wanted him to walk the edge. He wanted him to push for what he wanted, and be so brave he couldn’t catch his breath. So Sam opened his mouth—and said it aloud.   
  
Dean stared at him. Wide-eyed, open-mouthed, like Sam had just smacked him in the head with the menu resting by his arm. “You like...” he started, his face such an intense shade of wonder and honest-to-God _happiness_ that Sam found himself blushing just under that look.   
  
They were saved by the waitress, who asked what they wanted, and Dean replied automatically, ordering them both lasagna and salad. When she walked away, Dean stretched his open hand over the table, and Sam took it, and if anything, Dean’s grin got a little sillier, a little wider.   
  
Dean held his hand until the food came, and he looked regretful letting go. Sam felt dizzy, lightheaded this time with amazement that he had done something so  _right_ .   
  
~   
  
Dean felt like his head wasn’t quite screwed on tight enough. Everything he thought of, everything he wanted, kept rattling around, and sometimes, just when he thought he’d gotten something straightened out, he’d look at Sam and everything he was grasping would vanish again as though it had never been.   
  
_I like being with you_ , Sam had said, and if that didn’t make Dean feel like he’d been run over by a truck—but in a good way, a really fucking fantastic way—then he didn’t know what would.   
  
He barely tasted the lasagna, and he ate all of his salad—generally, he would have rather gone ghost-hunting naked—and by the time they got around to the dessert, Dean thought that maybe he’d be able to look at Sam again without grinning like a schoolgirl with a crush. A confirmed crush. A really smoking hot most-awesome-person-in-the-world-really-d oes-like-you crush.   
  
Fuck it, this called for a celebration.   
  
And, conveniently, there was a sale on pastries.   
  
“Hey, Sam, how about we get an entire pie? Like, maybe one of these pumpkin ones. Just, the whole thing with extra whipped cream and the whole nine yards?”   
  
Sam had been quietly, happily smiling at the remains of his lasagna—the sauce at the bottom of the little pottery dish, Sam never left food just because he didn’t want to eat it—and occasionally glancing toward the door, maybe intrigued by the claw machine. He’d been a bit distracted ever since he’d said that he liked being with Dean, and more than anything else, Dean wanted to kiss him. At his question, Sam glanced over absently. “No, Dean.”   
  
For one second, Dean was stunned. That had totally not been a No question. He’d been completely serious about that pie.   
  
But that reaction was blown away almost instantly in a wave of triumph and exhilaration that almost threatened to overwhelm the buzz from when Sam said that he really, truly liked being around Dean.  _Because Sam had just said no to him. For real._   
  
Yeah, Sam had likely just thought it was another one of Dean’s cheesy set-ups. But that didn’t wipe the taste of victory and lasagna off his lips.   
  
Best. Day. Ever.   
  
Then Sam looked up, saw the surprise on his face, and went pale as a ghost. All he needed were a few more dark spots around his eyes and maybe a deathwound or two and Dean would have expected him to flicker.   
  
“I’m—” Sam began, but had to swallow, hard. It looked like he was almost choking on something, and he suddenly wasn’t looking at Dean, or any of the people in the restaurant, but staring fixedly at the salt and pepper shakers on the side of the table like he thought they were a magic talisman to take back what he’d said. “I’m s-s-s—”   
  
“Sam.” Dean reached across the table and pulled Sam’s hand up. Wrapped the delicate, too-thin fingers in his own callused hand and squeezed.  _Just look at me. See how happy I am._  “Sam, you’ve got nothing to apologize for. I think you’re awesome.”   
  
He waited until Sam looked at him, really looked at him, and the pinched, terrified look around Sam’s eyes eased up. He let Sam soak in the knowledge that Dean was not angry but  _really fucking ecstatic_ right now. He hoped a fraction of what he felt showed on his face, because this was a fantastic day to be Dean Winchester, and he wanted that happiness for Sam. It was always and ever the most he wanted.   
  
When Sam’s breathing eased back from panic attack levels, when his grip in Dean’s hand was firm, but not bone-crushing, Dean grinned. “We’re totally going to celebrate with pie.”   
  
They did  _not_ get an entire pie. Sam was completely correct that getting an entire pie for the two of them was a ridiculous idea, and Dean repeated this fact so many times that the people at the next table probably thought he had some kind of mental condition. But it was worth it to see Sam relax and finally grin back at him.   
  
~*~   
  
Later, back at the hotel, Dean pulled Sam into a hard hug. “I’m so proud of you,” he said, and surely there was no way Sam could doubt him now. “You said no to me when I didn’t expect it. I couldn’t be fucking happier tonight, Sam.” Well, he could think of one way he could be happier: feeling Sam’s cheek, Sam’s lips, brush against his neck when he let go of the hug. But Dean was happy, right then, with what he had, and didn’t want to tempt himself. The PG rule was hard enough. He compromised by resting his forehead against Sam’s, smiling into his eyes. “Do you know why I made that rule, Sammy?"   
  
He felt Sam tense under his hands, but he didn’t react, kept his movements slow and easy, kept his breathing even. The last thing Sam needed right now was another source of fear. And, even though he’d pretty much had the best day ever, he wanted Sam to be happy too. It wouldn’t be right if he weren’t.   
  
Sam swallowed. "So...so I can recognize b-bad ideas and s-stop them?”   
  
Dean huffed out a laugh. “Maybe, yeah, a little bit. But more importantly, I want you to speak up for yourself, Sam. If you don’t like something, or know it’s dumb, or just think I could do it better, you’ve got to say  _no_ . Even to me. _Especially_ to me.” He stepped back a little, brushed his thumb along Sam’s cheek. "Is it okay for me to make you watch something you don't like?"   
  
Sam's hazel eyes were wide and uncertain. Dean could feel the tremor in his hands. "No," he whispered.   
  
Dean smiled encouragingly,  _right answer Sam, you’re coming so damn far._  "Is it okay for me to make you do _anything_ you don't want to do?"   
  
This was the crux. He could see Sam teetering on the edge, start to slide as he closed his eyes and shook his head, fingers grabbing at Dean’s sleeves. "Dean," he said, helplessly, "Anything you want, I want. I d-don’t understand what you—”   
  
Dean wrapped Sam up in his arms again, held him tight. “No, Sam. That’s not the right answer. It’s never right to make you do anything you don’t want to do. But for today, for saying no to me when I was ridiculous, I’m so fucking proud of you I can’t even say. Do you believe me?”   
  
Sam nodded, just a jerk of his head into Dean’s shoulder. Dean tilted his head and kissed his temple, smelling clean hair, and lasagna, and  _Sam_ .   
  
“Best day ever,” he said at last. “I got you, and pie, what else do I need?”   
  
When Sam laughed, just a little shake of his shoulders beneath Dean’s arms, Dean let him go and grinned into his wary but hopeful eyes. “Best day ever,” he said again, because it was true.   
  
~*~   
  
In Sissonville, West Virginia, Dean decided it was about time to make a stop at a laundromat. When he was hunting, laundry was a regular necessity, but since he and Sam weren’t regularly traipsing through mud and gravedirt or letting their clothes soak up blood from assorted wounds (no, Dean was happy to keep their lives uneventful, nothing more than a leisurely, aimless drive from one town to the next, with no end purpose in mind), the only taint on them was ordinary sweat from driving in an enclosed black car in late summer.   
  
He tried to explain to Sam the concept of laundromats, doing his hardest to imagine what it’d be like in Sam’s eyes. He wasn’t particularly good at that game yet, knew he was a continent away from really  _seeing_ the world as Sam did. And a cowardly chunk of him didn’t want to, even if it meant he could help Sam better. And that made him feel like shit, because he knew by now how this worked: when Dean couldn’t reach out for Sam, when he didn’t have the words or the guts to explain how the real world worked, it was Sam who would have to stretch himself farther—break himself open, sometimes, fall down and shake because he couldn’t reach that far without hurting—to bridge the gap between Freak Camp and the real world. And explaining a fucking laundromat (so that Sam didn’t panic when a dryer turned on, or when some preppy bastard with polish on his shoes started talking about hot-ironing his shirts) couldn’t hurt Dean worse than Sam had been hurt. Not even close, so he could suck it up and deal.   
  
Sam was as attentive as ever to the explanation, but Dean still held his breath as they crossed the threshold, watching Sam as much as he could out of only the corner of his eye as Sam took it in. The grocery store hadn’t seemed particularly threatening, either.   
  
But Sam’s cautious unease at the rows of large machines didn’t seem any worse than his usual reaction to walking into a loud diner or particularly busy gas station. He stayed close to Dean’s side, and Dean shifted his duffel to rest his hand on Sam’s back as they moved forward to find some empty washers.   
  
It wasn’t that bad, as laundromats ran; nowhere near as sketchy as some Dean and John had used in the past. Dean had made sure of this, just as he steered away from the cheapest motels that had once been his automatic choice. Sam deserved better. Sam deserved to be clean and safe.   
  
Dean had taken charge of the laundry in Boulder, but as Sam adjusted to the laundromat scene, he took interest in helping Dean toss their jeans and shirts inside a couple of the machines, measuring out detergent in the lid cup, and finally slotting in the quarters. A smile even flickered across his face as the machine chinked and clunked, accepting the coins.   
  
“So it’s usually like forty-five minutes for the washer, and another hour for the dryer,” Dean told him, leaning against the rumbling machine. “Which is why I told you to bring a book in.” He nodded toward a row of chairs by the door. “We can go chill over there.”   
  
A basket of well-thumbed magazines stood by the chairs, and Dean found an issue of Motor Trend way at the back, underneath all the chick and gossipy ones. “Bingo.” Sam folded his legs Indian-style on the plastic seat and opened _The Animals of the Serengeti_ to the page with a full-color illustration of wildebeests.   
  
The laundromat wasn’t busy on a Wednesday morning. A couple of older people shuffled in and out without looking at them, so when a mom with two young kids pushed open the glass door, it was like a circus had burst out from behind the dryers. Dean didn’t blame Sam for jumping.   
  
The mother looked run-down and harassed, holding a baby on one hip and an overflowing laundry basket balanced against the other, a large purse perched precariously on her shoulder and her hair escaping in wild disarray from her ponytail. A toddler, no more than a couple years older than the one carried, stomped along behind with an action figure in each hand. The mother’s eyes flickered to Dean and Sam, taking measure of two unknown men in a neutral domain, and then away.   
  
With a heavy sigh, she plunked the baby down on top of a washer and dropped the basket at her feet. “Play quiet and stay out of the way,” she told the boy, and he sat down on the floor behind her, huddling with his action figures.   
  
The chubby baby on the washer—probably a girl, Dean could never tell just by looking at kids that age, but the intense pinkness of the outfit was a pretty strong clue—leaned toward the edge, small hands stretched down toward the boy, and gurgled something wordless, yet clearly demanding. The mother pushed her back, but the child crawled forward again, making louder, more insistent noises.   
  
“Okay, okay.” The mother scooped her up, setting her down before the boy. “Dylan, play nice with Kelly, and stay in this aisle, okay? And keep her away from my laundry bin, I do not need her stuffing your underpants in her mouth again.”   
  
Dylan, busy making his action figures leapfrog over each other, didn’t look up. “Okay.”   
  
The woman pushed loose strands of hair away before reaching down for the laundry. The hair fell right back over her face, and she paused to brush it away again after her clothes were piled on the table. She separated the lights from the darks (huh, yeah, Dean had heard somewhere that was a good idea, though it never hurt his white socks any to be washed with the jeans) and took out a stain remover stick to scrub each article of small clothing before dropping it in the washer.   
  
Dylan pulled his toys out of Kelly’s reach, frowning. “ _No_ , Kelly, you can’t chew on Spiderman. No, Kells, that’s his head! Not Green Ranger either!” Kelly waved her fists, face scrunching up and looking ready to blow at this injustice. “Mom,” Dylan said loudly, “where’s Kelly’s toy?”   
  
Their mother sighed in the middle of stain-sticking a small baby-blue shirt that looked more spaghetti-colored than anything, and ran her hand across her forehead. It seemed to be more of an automatic response to stress than a need to control her hair. She rummaged in her oversized bag, then set a pink convertible Barbie car by the kids. Dylan pulled Kelly to her feet, balancing her under her chubby short arms so she didn’t fall over. “C’mon, Kelly, Spiderman and Green Ranger are gonna rob the bank.”   
  
Dean snorted, rustling his magazine, because seriously, what warped kind of kid thought Spiderman would ever drive a Barbie car to rob a bank? Did he run out of web putting some finishing touches on paper mache sculptures?   
  
The kids pushed the car back and forth down the aisle, before the invisible cops gave chase, and Spiderman and his cronies had to make a quick getaway turn around the last washer in the aisle.   
  
“We gotta hide out until the helicoppers leave,” Dylan whispered loudly to Kelly. She, however, had noticed a basket of laundry left unattended by folk who had never suspected the bank robberies and toddlers that may happen in the laundromat, and happily pushed her hands through the holes on the side, pulling out socks and the sleeves of classy dress shirts.   
  
“Oh no, they’re closing in!” Dylan cried. “We’ve gotta ditch the getaway car. Quick, Kelly, let’s hide in this landfill.” They dug a hole in the pile of clothes on top to bury the action figures, then Dylan hauled Kelly up and over the edge into the basket, too. “You keep them safe and play dead.” He yanked a couple T-shirts and a pair of sweatpants over her head. From inside the basket, Kelly giggled.   
  
Dean covered his mouth with his fist, because he was definitely not grinning like a girl over some little kids and their antics. He glanced over at Sam—because c’mon, this was pretty irresistible—and was taken aback to see no trace of amusement on Sam’s face. Through his bangs, without raising his head, Sam was staring with painful intensity at the kids. Dean glanced back at the scene with more unease, wondering what Sam saw that he didn’t.   
  
The mother swung the washer doors shut, the last of her carefully stain-sticked shirts deposited inside, and turned, the back of her hand sliding imaginary hair off her forehead. She froze when she saw the empty aisle, and her eyes flashed for an instant to Dean and Sam before scanning the rest of the laundromat. “Dylan? Kelly?”   
  
“Yeah, Mom?”   
  
Relaxing visibly at the sound of her son’s voice, but still tense and unhappy, she strode down the row of washers until she found her son and the innocent-looking laundry basket. She seemed to almost smile at her son before realizing her daughter wasn’t there. “Dylan, where’s Kelly?”   
  
Dylan put his finger to his lips. “Shhh, she’s dead. We had to bury her to keep the coppers away.”   
  
“She’s—Dylan Michael, if you don’t tell me where your sister is this—” The laundry basket shifted, and like an avenging angel or some kind of hawk seeing its prey, the mother dove on it and pawed through the clothes until she saw Kelly’s arms reaching up for her, one white sock dangling out of her mouth. With a strangled noise, the mother hauled her daughter into her arms, then turned and grabbed her son roughly by the shoulder. “Dylan Michael, did you not hear me? I said  _stay_ in the aisle, I said to  _keep_ Kelly away from strangers’ clothes—you can forget about going to the toy store tomorrow, young man.”   
  
Dylan started to sniff as his mother hauled him back down the aisle by the arm, and Kelly began to howl into her mother’s shoulder. “B-b-but, Mom...I didn’t mean...I want Spidey and Green Ranger! We can’t  _leave_ them, they’re gonna get caught!” And he lunged against her arm, back toward the laundry basket.   
  
Sam had flinched as soon as the mother began shouting, and Dean had put his hand automatically on Sam’s knee. But when the children started up in earnest, Sam hunched down further, bracing his forehead in his hands, shaking just enough to start his book sliding off his lap. Dean leaned forward to catch it, concerned and unsure, until he finally heard, under the kid’s screams, how unsteady Sam’s breathing was.   
  
“Sammy?”   
  
“No.” Dean almost didn’t catch it, but Sam’s whisper was part-moan. “No, no, I don’t want to—”   
  
Dean might not always know what set Sam off, but he knew enough now to recognize the signs of an impending panic attack and not just sit on his ass and take notes. Taking Sam’s shaking shoulders, he pulled him out of the chair—“C’mon, Sam, let’s get some air”—and hustled him out the doors, into the parking lot.   
  
Sam leaned against the brick wall, still covering his face with both hands, and Dean hoped against hope his grip on Sam’s shoulders was bracing instead of confining.   
  
“Hey,” he said, quietly. “Hey, breathe, it’s okay now, it’s just you and me. You’re okay, nothing’s happening. C’mon, just take some deep breaths.”   
  
It didn’t seem to be getting through. Sam was shaking his head, and as he dropped his hands, his words were as desperate and sob-broken as they were at night, during his worst nightmares. He scrubbed his hands across his thighs, as though trying to shake off something sticky and burning, or attempting to convey what he couldn’t put into words.   
  
“I don’t want...I don’t want to hear, please, I just d-don’t want to listen—”   
  
“Whoa, whoa, easy.” Dean caught his hands, willing Sam to look him in the face. “Can you tell me? I can’t help unless I got a clue. What’s bothering you, Sammy?”   
  
Sam took a few deep breaths, head still down, his hands shaking within Dean’s. “I don’t want,” he began again, painfully and slowly, “to hear...what happens to them.”   
  
Dean looked at him, feeling that itch beneath his skin that generally meant that whatever this was, it was going to be bad. “Sam, what do you mean?”   
  
“Y-you said our clothes would take f-f-forty-five minutes, and it’s only been s-sixteen, so we could g-go, we could sit in the Imp-pala for t-twenty minutes, t-twenty-five, and then when we come back, sh-sh-she’ll be done. P-please tell me she’ll be done. Please, I can’t—I’m s-sorry, Dean, I’m so sorry, but could we, please, could we please go, I’m sorry.”   
  
Dean wrapped an arm around his shoulders and walked him to where the Impala was parked in the last spot facing the building. With Sam shaking with the effort and horror of asking for something, even if it was clearly something he needed in order to keep upright at that moment, the last thing Dean was going to do was say no.   
  
They were tucked into the Impala, Sam hiding his face in Dean’s shoulder, his legs drawn up against his chest, before Dean said anything.   
  
“Sam,” Dean said, brushing a hand through his hair.   
  
Sam flinched. “E-eight more minutes, Dean. Please. Then our laundry will be done and sh-she’ll be done and—”   
  
“Sam, what do you think is happening?”   
  
Sam pressed his face into the space between the seat back and Dean’s shoulder, his words even softer and more muffled. “They’re reals, and so young, so she has to be done in twenty minutes. She w-wouldn’t...” His back shuddered. “They’re so, so small. She wouldn’t...”   
  
Dean didn't understand all of it, probably not even a fraction of the horror show going through Sam's head right now, but he understood enough. He wrapped his arm more securely around Sam’s back, held him tight.   
  
“Sam, she’s not going to hurt them,” he said softly. “She’s their mom. Moms don’t do that, okay,” and he knew he wasn’t exactly telling the truth, but fuck it, he was not going to tell Sam about those piece-of-shit abusive parents today. “She was yelling at them, yeah, but that’s all she’s going to do. Kids like that, they get put in time-out—where they have to sit in a corner for a while, and don’t get any toys—or the older boy may get a spanking. But it’s not really going to hurt him, Sam, I swear. There are laws against that, and they lock up anyone who hurts kids. They make them stop.”   
  
Sam was still shaking a bit, but it looked like he was listening too, as he gradually calmed down, breathing deeper. Dean rubbed the back of Sam’s neck, waiting it out, until Sam finally sat up.   
  
Dean patted Sam’s knee. “You ready to go back in?”   
  
Inhaling deep, Sam nodded, composed, and they got back out of the car. Outside the laundromat door, Dean felt Sam grab the bottom of his jacket, and he reached back and took Sam’s hand before pushing it open.   
  
Inside, the mother sat in one of the chairs they had vacated, reading a magazine and looking more exhausted than ever with red-rimmed eyes. Kelly was asleep against her chest, and Dylan played quietly with Spiderman and Green Ranger beside the chair.   
  
Dean walked slowly, letting Sam look from under his bangs. When they reached their washer, Sam had recovered enough to help him move everything to an empty dryer and then push the quarters in.   
  
They leaned back against the washer behind them for a minute, as the clothes began to spin. Then Dean nudged Sam’s shoulder with his, and spoke in his ear. “We got an hour to kill—wanna walk over to that smoothie place down the road?”   
  
Sam’s smile wasn’t very big or strong, but he met Dean’s eye as he gave him a quick nod.


	13. Chapter 13

Dean sometimes felt he was the slowest bastard in the continental U.S., but he had, eventually, figured out some of what Sam liked.   
  
He liked seeing new places, he liked the Impala (who wouldn’t?), he liked the freedom of the road (new places every night, strangers smiling at them with vague politeness), and unless something had radically changed in the last week, he liked being with Dean. Okay, so that last hadn’t taken any stretch of deductive reasoning (the funny squeeze around Dean's chest every time he remembered those words made him think about finding the closest defibrillator or maybe pulling Sam in for a kiss), but Dean knew it for sure now.   
  
Sam liked fresh fruit and the Discovery Channel. He liked sunshine, trees, and apple juice. But of all the things Sam liked that Dean had carefully, precariously sussed out, books were the most obvious.   
  
Sam liked watching the scenery roll past the Impala’s window, but he spent most of the time reading while Dean drove. He read before bed, too, while Dean channel-surfed idly and bumped Sam’s shoulder with his own. And talking about books was the surest, safest way to light him up, even, like now, when the noise and bustle of a new restaurant pushed him further into his seat.   
  
Dean took a sip of water and tried to sound casual, as opposed to sneaky. “So, you finished that book about the kids digging holes?”   
  
Sam brightened, straightening and leaning toward Dean like the question was a line drawing him closer, letting him forget everyone else in the room.   
  
“Yes, I did,” he said. “Stanley found Zero in a r-rowboat, and they climbed a nearby mountain to find water. They ate a lot of o-onions there, too, so later when they got caught in a h-hole with a bunch of yellow-spotted lizards, the lizards didn’t bite them.”   
  
Dean asked Sam about whatever book he was in the middle of pretty much every time they stopped to eat. At first, he’d asked just because, fuck, it was something for them to talk about, right? And nothing opened Sam up the same way. But gradually he’d realized that he really did care. Books weren’t something he had time for—unless it was research for a hunt and even then, hell, sometimes he’d rather just wing it, stupid as that was—but with Sam, it didn’t matter if he was explaining the fine points of snail farming or the plot of an old-time children’s novel, Dean got the same low thrill of listening to a favorite tape with the bass cranked high, or fine-tuning the Impala’s engine. “Because their breath stank?”   
  
“Because the o-onion juice was in their blood,” Sam said patiently.   
  
“Huh.” Dean sat back. “Maybe we should start munching onions in the Impala, in case any of those lizards skedaddled out of Texas.”   
  
There it was, a quick flash of a grin before Sam ducked his head down for a second before he raised it again. “No, Dean, I don’t think so.”   
  
“All right. I guess I have enough problems choking down French onion soup and crap like that, let alone eating the things raw, so that part of the plan would have been pretty hard to pull off. What happened after they were saved by their onion-blood?”   
  
“In the hole, they found a s-suitcase belonging to Stanley’s ancestor, the first Stanley. It was full of treasure, and Stanley u-used it buy a new house for his family and to help find Zero’s mom.” Sam paused, tilting his head with a sudden idea. “A lot of books end with treasure.”   
  
“Yeah, that’s what everyone wants at the end of the day,” Dean said dryly. “Find a big sack of gold, make all your dreams come true.”   
  
Sam looked out the window, over the parking lot of gleaming cars, shining bright enough in the sun to hurt the eyes, his forehead knit in thought. “I don’t want a sack of gold. I don’t know w-what I’d do with it.”   
  
“You could buy one hell of a library with a sack of gold.”   
  
Sam’s mouth quirked again, and he looked back at Dean. “I don’t want just  _one_ library. Libraries are n-nice, you can visit any of them. I’d rather see them all.” He straightened with a sudden thought. “We could use the g-gold to put gas in the Impala.”   
  
Dean smiled down into his coke, not sure why he felt he had to conceal the curve of his mouth. Stopping at that booksale had to have been one of the five best decisions in his life. Two months ago, Sam had been full of hesitations, flinching from Dean, touching the spines of books gingerly, as though they could bite him for his presumption. Now, all these moments without hesitation, from the way Sam handled his latest novel to how he took that we for granted, did funny things to Dean’s heart no matter how frequent they were becoming.   
  
“Anyway, that br-broke the curse,” Sam added. “Over the lake and Stanley’s family, the bad luck.”   
  
Dean looked up, eyebrow raised. “They didn’t set anything on fire? No salt and accelerant?”   
  
Sam shook his head, still smiling faintly. “Rules were d-different, in this world.”   
  
Dean might have kept going, found out what other rules had been different, or what Sam was going to start on next, but the waitress brought their plates and any literary discussion was trumped by turkey clubs and french fries. Dean had always loved food, the mouth-watering goodness of a prime burger, the satisfaction from a cold beer, but everything was better now with Sam. And today wasn’t a day when Sam stared at the food as though he wasn’t sure what he should do with it or couldn’t quite believe that Dean wanted him to dig in. Sam ate steadily and with almost as much gusto as Dean.   
  
Dean appreciated Sam’s company, the comfortable silence during and after the meal as satisfying, in its own way, as their conversations, to the point where, now, after their plates were wiped clean—Sam had picked up Dean’s habit of cleaning up every last bit of sauce with a few carefully applied french fries, though he was much more thorough about it than Dean had ever been—it took him a minute to realize that Sam was staring intently at something over Dean’s shoulder, rather than in the same satisfied food-coma.   
  
Dean twisted to look (not a threat, Sam didn’t look spooked enough for that), just as Sam said, “I’ll—I’ll b-be right back,” and placed both hands on the table to push himself up out of the booth. Dean watched, stunned, as Sam strode to the long empty bar counter and leaned over to speak to the waitress.   
  
Dean realized that he’d half-risen out of his seat, tense as though he’d just found a pile of fresh shifter slough. But someone talking to Sam when he couldn’t hear, Sam _getting up_ and walking away from him didn’t count as life-threatening danger, and  _no_ he did not almost just pull his fucking gun.   
  
Before Dean could quite get his heartbeat and adrenaline under control, the waitress had answered—Dean still couldn’t hear anything, dammit, had Sam noticed something suspicious that he hadn’t?—and Sam had come back to his seat.   
  
Sam probably looked calm and composed to anyone but Dean, who noticed the set of his shoulders and the way he spread his fingers wide over the table, as though he hoped the surface would keep him steady.   
  
“They have blueberry and rhu-rhubarb pie,” he said. “Three-fifty a slice.”   
  
He was looking Dean in the eye, mouth set, trying not to show what that had cost him. As though walking away from Dean on the spur of the moment was no big deal. Like he got up to inquire about dessert options every day. Like he never folded down on himself, no matter how animated he had been a second before, when the waitress surprised him.   
  
Dean realized he should say something, respond to the information about the pie, accept what Sam had just given him in the spirit it had been offered, but it was really hard to string words together right now when Sam had completely run him over with awesome and he wasn’t sure he could convey how proud he was without sounding mentally damaged.   
  
“Uh,” he tried, and that was not a good start,  _dammit Dean get it together_ , “that’s—blueberry, you said? Man, I haven’t had good blueberry pie since I hit this tiny mom-and-pop in Arizona, which was weird because I didn’t even think they had blueberries in the desert, and—what was the other one?”   
  
“Rhubarb,” Sam said, and he was smiling, clearly getting a kick out of Dean babbling like an idiot. That was completely fine, Dean would babble every day if it meant Sam would keep smiling like that.   
  
“ _Dude_ , what the hell? That stuff’s like some kind of mutant celery, and totally shouldn’t be allowed in a pie in the first place, it’s practically sacrilege —”   
  
“Okay,” Sam said, and looked up, swaying forward a bare few, almost imperceptible degrees that nevertheless counted for fucking everything, to catch the attention of a passing waiter. “Ex-excuse m-me, cou-cou-could we have two—two s-slices of blu-blueberry pie, p-please.” His eyelids fluttered shut halfway through, and one hand had fisted tight at his shoulder, but oh my  _God_  he was the bravest thing Dean had ever seen in his fucking life.   
  
Some people couldn’t see true heroism if it fucking asked them for pie. “Sure,” the kid waiter said, and wandered off.   
  
Sam was visibly trembling now, resting his head on his fist and practically panting, drained of resources to pretend he was still okay.   
  
Dean had no words— _fuck, Sammy, you didn’t have to do that for me, don’t push yourself like that_ —but he could act. He got up to step around the table and slide in next to Sam, pressing in close from knee to shoulder.   
  
“We could try the rhubarb too, if you want,” he said softly. Sam’s eyes didn’t open, but his mouth twitched in a smile.   
  
“S-sacrilege in a pie? Maybe n-next time.”   
  
Dean laughed and squeezed his shoulder, feeling light-headed. “Could be worse. I was in upper Maine and there was a group of white dudes worshiping a cannibalistic African minor god. I’m never touching minced pie again, man.” Then there had been that cherry pie in D.C. that had been really better than it should have been, and probably no one would ever have it again because he and John had to dig up and burn the grandma who made the recipe, but that was neither here nor there because Sam was the bravest person in the world and Dean was pretty sure that this pie wouldn’t ever be as awesome as him.   
  
When the pie came, it was just basic blueberry, with a tiny squirt of whipped cream sprawled over the top, but when Dean raised it to his lips and Sam—his Sam, who had rallied and talked to strangers for him, who had brought him this pie as surely as though he had earned an artifact bounty to put down the cash—smiled, raising his fork at the same time, not afraid to look him in the eye and eat, it became the best fucking pie in the world.   
  
From a strictly flavor point of view, Dean still preferred cherry. But if it meant that Sam would smile like that every time they sat down to dessert, he would eat blueberry for the rest of his life and never look back.   
  
~*~   
  
Being brave—Sam had had to think of the Director’s lessons, how he’d been taught all the ways his monster self could be useful, to force himself to walk up to the counter alone to ask about the pie—was worth every second of borderline panic if it meant that Dean would always look at him like Sam had brought him the best present in the world with a simple question. It wasn’t even  _fear_ exactly that made him tuck his hands beneath the table afterward so Dean wouldn’t see them shaking, but more like desire for Dean not to know what such a simple real thing had cost him. Dean seemed to think he could pass for a real, that it wouldn’t be hard for him to learn the thousands of things reals did without thinking, and even if Sam wasn’t afraid of being returned to FREACS anymore, he didn’t want Dean to know what a disappointing monster he had picked out.   
  
Dean was so happy with him tonight, though, and Sam carried that joy and fulfillment with him, treasuring it like a candle flame in winter, back to the Impala.   
  
Sam loved nights when, after dinner, they just kept driving. Sometimes Dean had a reason (someplace he wanted Sam to see in the morning, or he didn’t feel like “settling in like a damn civilian”), but other nights Dean offered no explanation and Sam asked for none. There was something utterly comforting about him and Dean in the Impala, riding beneath the endless stars. Dean stopped for naps when he needed them, often as not pulling over at some truckstop or just off a ragged country road, and Sam slept on and off. Sometimes Sam could even believe that Dean wouldn’t catch him watching his profile against the moonlight. If they were both lucky, Dean would never know how much the ugly monster beside him longed for him.   
  
Sam liked it when it was just them and the Impala. When he had no reason to be brave and faced no risk of failure before other reals. But that night, they stopped at the first hotel that had a lit vacancy sign.   
  
They had fallen into a nightly routine within the first few days. Dean dumped his bags—one for clothes, one for weapons Sam had never seen used—on the bed closest to the door and then sprawled on the second bed, grabbing the TV remote while Sam carefully laid his one bag with the others. When Dean didn’t seem like he was going to reconsider sharing a bed (of all the worries in Sam’s life, he wouldn’t have expected that one to among the biggest, and yet it was), Sam would unpack his toiletries bag in the bathroom. He’d hear voices, explosions, animals, sales pitches for high-quality vegetable choppers, but by the time he left the bathroom, Dean would have the TV switched off or muted on the Weather Channel. Sam took his time brushing his teeth and showering, but it was always a balance between letting Dean enjoy his TV time and being out before he came to the door to check on him.   
  
And then when Sam left the bathroom, Dean would grin at him and make space on the bed. Tonight Dean had stripped to his T-shirt and boxers and was flipping between the weather and nature channels, looking intent.   
  
When he glanced away from the TV, he smiled. “Hey, Sam. You want a storm front over the Midwest or the secret life of mongeese?”   
  
_Mongooses_ . Sam felt himself freeze, along with the usual rush of adrenaline that told him no answer could possibly be right. Then he smiled back. He could be brave. “Mongeese.”   
  
But he didn’t feel the tension completely leave until he had climbed into the bed and Dean had thrown an arm over his shoulders, pulling him in closer. Then and only then could Sam completely relax.   
  
~*~   
  
Dean was still basking in the day (pie, Sam  _asking_ for pie, Sam nestled in close against his side watching something other than clouds on the Weather Channel) when his phone lit up. Dean’s immediate alarm—he still hadn’t hear from John since he got Sam out—settled the second he saw Bobby’s name on the screen.   
  
He snapped it open with a cheerful, ”Hey, Bobby!” and felt Sam’s shoulders jump under his arm.   
  
He didn’t even wait to hear Bobby’s response before he was disentangling himself from Sam. “Hey, gimme a second, gonna get some air.”   
  
He’d left his pants somewhere, probably under the other bed, so he just grabbed his jacket on the way out the door. “I’ll be back, Sam,” he called, and then stepped out onto the second-floor walkway overlooking the parking lot.   
  
“What was that about?” Bobby’s voice sounded guarded.   
  
Dean hesitated. He wasn’t sure he could explain how even Sam’s mildest reactions—a wary glance, the tense set of his shoulders—made Dean want to  _fix_ it, whether by explaining the situation to Sam, dragging the problem out of sight, or shooting a threat point-blank. And a call from family (after all the shit he’d put up with for Dean, Bobby definitely qualified, especially if John wasn’t willing to do the job anymore) made Dean want space, for all their sakes.   
  
He couldn’t explain that, and even the brush of the thoughts made him feel like not just a moron, but a moron standing outside a hotel room in the middle of the night in his damn underwear. Especially since he was pretty sure he’d caught this fear from Sam. He didn’t think Bobby posed any threat to Sam—he’d helped get him out, after all—but hearing Bobby’s voice while his arm was wrapped around Sam had made Dean jump like a civilian faced with his first ghost encounter.   
  
“Nothing.” He shifted uneasily. Fuck, it was cold out here. He should have taken the time to find his fucking pants.   
  
“Dean.”   
  
Dean froze mid-shift. That was Bobby’s _don’t fuck with me_  voice, close enough to John’s to make his blood pressure jump. His first instinct was to hang up, but that was also Bobby’s  _give me a solid explanation for your weird behavior or I’m going to start force-feeding you holy water_  voice. Not a safe tone to ignore, especially since Bobby had cosigned the paperwork. Dean didn’t  _think_ Bobby would send Sam back to that shithole, but it would be fucking stupid to gamble on this when there was nothing wrong with him. Nothing wrong with  _them_ .   
  
“Hey, sorry,” he said, with his best attempt to sound light and offhand. “Sam gets a little twitchy when I get phone calls, so I wanted to give him some space in the room, you know?” He didn’t say that Bobby was the only person who ever called.   
  
Bobby sounded unconvinced, but he didn’t sound quite as close to suggesting Dean take a salt bath. “How’re you boys doing?”   
  
Dean leaned on the railing, looking over the dark parking lot. “Better. Hell of a lot better.”   
  
“You thinking about getting out of Boulder anytime soon, maybe catching a job?”   
  
Dean felt his stomach drop. “Hey, yeah, about that…”   
  
“Dean…”   
  
“We’re kinda in Virginia.”   
  
“Kinda? You’re either there or you aren’t, idjit.”   
  
Dean smiled. “Yeah, we’re here.”   
  
“Well. That’s different. How’s…Sam doing?”   
  
“Good. Better. I mean, this is still fr—damn weird for both of us, but it’s...better. And it’s nice not to be trapped in one place, you know?”   
  
“Yeah. Road’s what you’re used to. Probably feels like familiar territory, or your old stomping grounds, old habits...that sort of thing.”   
  
Shoulders tensing, Dean scanned the parking lot and walkway. “Something wrong, Bobby?”   
  
“Not r—yeah, maybe something. Just got a report about some missing teens in Maryland, not sure if the ASC assigned someone yet.”   
  
“Ah.” Dean gripped the rail tight, feeling the cheap paint flake off into his palm. Shit. He knew what he should say now. He knew it like he knew the weight of the slim knife tucked into his jacket’s inside pocket.  _Not_ saying “Yeah, I got it” felt wrong, so wrong, like having a car other than the Impala under his hand, or telling a civilian he was Mary Campbell-Winchester’s son,  _that_ Dean Winchester.   
  
He’d never yet turned aside a case unless he had a broken leg or head trauma and a ten-hour drive between him and the distress call. That’s what being a hunter was about: being committed to saving lives, holding the front line, getting your hands dirty. You didn’t flinch or back down. Once you started only doing the hunts nearby or those with a nice fat bounty, you were just like the scumbag asswipes in the ASC breeding pool. John’s—and Bobby’s, and Dean’s—view was clear: real hunting was thankless, miserable, and about as far from glory as you could get. Those smarmy dicks soaking up Granny’s tears of gratitude on CNN were a fucking disgrace to the profession.   
  
Dean’s hesitation now didn’t  _mean_  anything—he had Sam to think about now, he couldn’t just jump into things the way he used to—but Bobby seemed to read plenty into it. “So,” he said, voice noticeably cooler. “I’ve been meaning to ask. You still a hunter?”   
  
“Of course I am,” Dean snapped, anger flaring up. Fuck Bobby for asking, seriously. “D’you think that’s something I can _drop?_ D’you think I’m gonna blow everything off and roadtrip the rest of my life?”   
  
“People have,” Bobby said, neutrally. “Sometimes they find a person, a reason for getting out. It’s not like you need your head checked for wanting a career with a retirement plan that doesn’t require dismemberment first.”   
  
Dean blew out his breath. He didn’t know what their future looked like. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to hunt with Sam along, didn’t know if he’d have the stomach for the danger, bonfires and bloodstains when he’d have to look Sam in the eye every day, or worse, if doing what he had been born to do would  _cost_  him Sam.  _Christ_ , Dean knew the kid wasn’t a monster, but he knew Sam had grown up with monsters in Freak Camp, so how would knowing Dean was killing supernaturals help him feel any safer around him, or even make him someone Sam wanted to be around?   
  
But it was what he was. Since Dad had sat him down and told him there were monsters and he killed them, Dean had never wanted, expected, or known himself to be anything but a hunter. He made the world safer, so that other people wouldn’t lose their moms, their children, the people they loved. As long as he could walk and hold a weapon in his hand, he would be a hunter. Fuck, he would be a hunter in a wheelchair or a coma.   
  
He hadn’t fired a gun in over two months.   
  
And it was because right now, his biggest priority was taking care of Sam, making him feel safe and happy. That was his number-one mission and a 24-hour job right now, and he couldn’t just take a break from it, no matter how much he itched just to say  _yeah, I can do the job_ . Because Sam couldn’t cope with that, not right now, and Dean had promised to stay with him, no matter where he had to be.   
  
Dammit, it wasn’t easy, but there was no question of what he would do. He just hoped he wasn’t throwing away his entire life in a few words.   
  
“I’m still a hunter, Bobby,” he said at last. “I don’t know how long it’ll be, but I just gotta—I gotta make sure Sam’s okay, all right? I gotta get him to a place where...where he’s okay. Not even great, Bobby just...okay.”   
  
“Huh.” Bobby sounded skeptical. “Got a rough idea how long that’ll take? Six months, a year?”   
  
“We’re not on a fucking timer, Bobby.” Dean felt like he was ten again, and like he was asking John for a camera, a few extra snacks, a couple hours longer in the camp. “Sam was in that shithole for eleven years, do you get that? He hasn’t even been out for three months and we’re getting better every fucking day, and if some days ought to be salted and torched, and Sam’s kinda fragile about every fucking thing right now, I think that’s pretty goddamn normal. At least it is according to that  _book_ you sent me.”   
  
“Watch your tone, boy.” There was no way Dean could ignore the dark warning in Bobby’s voice.   
  
He scrubbed his forehead, leaning his elbows on the railing. “Shit, okay, sorry, I shouldn’t have gone off on you. We just need time. Can I do something, like, take a break without being out of the game?”   
  
“Course you can,” Bobby said, suddenly gentle. “I get that. There don’t need to be a deadline, either. Just wanted to see if you had a picture.”   
  
Dean sighed, closed his eyes and raked his fingernails over his scalp. “I’ll let you know. I’m coming back, Bobby, I am, I just need to figure some shit out first.”   
  
“Right. Well, no rush, plenty of hunters running on the ASC dime. Cub like you, shouldn’t take more than three, four other bastards to pick up the slack.”   
  
Dean felt his lips twitch in a smile. “Shut up, old man.”   
  
“Watch yourself, boy, this old man might save your neck one day.”   
  
Dean snorted. “Maybe when I trade my baby for a PT Cruiser.”   
  
“Don’t bet the farm, kid. And, hey, that phone of yours does more than  _receive_ calls—I wanna hear from you every couple weeks on this sightseeing tour, got it?”   
  
“Yes, sir.”   
  
“And if you run out of country and wind up showing him Wall Drug and the Badlands, swing on down to Sioux Falls. You know you’ve got an open invitation here, just gimme a call before you swing by. Don’t want you tripping a beartrap while I’m away, it would be a pain-in-the-ass to clean up.”   
  
Dean smiled, relaxing. He hadn’t been sure if Bobby wanted Sam visiting, even if he had signed the papers. “Thanks, Bobby, I appreciate that. We’ll definitely head your way eventually, we’re just taking it easy now.” _Still heading east._   
  
“All right. Take care, kid.”   
  
Bobby hung up, and Dean stood against the rail, trying to ignore the cold breeze tickling his bare calves.   
  
Living with Sam, watching his fear grow and swallow him when Dean tried to ignore what hurt, meant that he had learned to face down what unnerved him and not fucking run from it no matter how much he wanted to turn away. So he would deal with the turmoil in his chest, not ignore it, not pretend this phone call hadn’t happened, because if he put off the question of whether or not he could keep hunting until it became vital for him to know, well, that might mean finding the answer far too late to do what was necessary for Sam. Whatever the hell that would be.   
  
He had to think about it, but that second, that night, the first step was to go back where Sam was waiting for him, and not panic him just because Dean felt like he’d been socked in the jaw by a yeti and wasn’t sure where he should go from there. Baby steps. Every day. And maybe someday they’d get somewhere.   
  
It took him five minutes, shivering slightly in the early autumn chill, before he could put the phone back in his jacket pocket and slide the key into the door.   
  
~*~   
  
Bobby leaned against the kitchen counter, looking at the phone in his hand and wondering if he should have pushed for an exact visiting date—or hell, even a time frame—or maybe gotten Dean to give him more than the state so Bobby could track them down himself.   
  
He’d been on Dean’s side from the start. First of all because he trusted the kid—more than his bastard excuse for a father, at least—and second because he’d gotten a long enough look at what those bastards at FREACS were doing to that freak Dean cared so much about to have a certain level of sympathy, just as far as his conscience was concerned. Bobby knew where he stood and didn’t regret helping Dean get Sam out, but he was starting to wish he’d kept a closer eye on him from the start.   
  
It wasn’t unusual for Bobby’s acquaintances—especially if their last name ended in Winchester—to disappear like a couple of annual ghosts in between surprise visits and emergency calls, but he and Dean had kept in pretty close touch since John threw him out of the house—assuming that the Winchesters had been living in a house at the time, which Bobby doubted. Dean had hung around South Dakota and often as not crashed on Bobby’s couch for almost a month before picking up some hunts farther west and scouting out a home base to which he could bring Sam. Bobby had liked Boulder and spotted Dean at least the basics in furniture. Then the months wore on, and Dean just kept brooding—even worse as his paperwork seemed to get no attention—until Bobby had let him go burn off steam however he could. Bobby knew that had involved fights, women, men, and hunts that had been on the crazy-edge of dangerous to do alone, and he’d been relieved for more than one reason when Dean finally got the notice that his application had gone through. Not that he was one to judge (he’d done some daft shit after Karen died), but he didn’t like seeing the kid burning himself up because he’d had pretty much nothing left.   
  
Contact had been much more sporadic since Dean picked Sam up. Apart from that one drunken distress call a few weeks in, Bobby had had to piece together a picture of the last few months himself. Since that first call, Dean had insisted they were getting better, but tonight he’d let something slip: _if some days ought to be salted and torched, and Sam’s kinda fragile about every fucking thing right now, I think that’s pretty goddamn normal_ . That could mean a lot of things, from the simple explanation that the kid was as traumatized as a long-time POW, to the sinister possibility that that trauma was lashing out in ways Dean, or even any psychiatrist, wasn’t prepared for.   
  
It hadn’t seemed important when Bobby saw those bastards torturing the kid, or when he helped Dean with the paperwork, but in this moment, Bobby hated like hell not having the least clue what might have made the ASC toss Sam into FREACS. Bobby liked research and back-up plans (because Plan A worked about a quarter of the time, and generally speaking, that meant Plan B had to be good because he was damned if he’d let himself get eaten from lack of preparation), but the files on Dean’s freak hadn’t been available and  _unidentified_ could mean anything. Dean had known Sam since he was a kid himself, but had they ever ruled out every form of mind control? Would it have  _killed_ them if Bobby had gone to at least interview the kid before signing the papers?   
  
Dean was a smart boy, for sure, but he was still awfully young and just at the age where a man’s dick, heart, and stomach had a hell of a lot more control than his head. Bobby had known him since he had been a silent four-year-old hidden in the shadow of John’s rage, grief, and paranoia, the two of them mourning Mary, reeling from the national revelation of the supernatural following the White House Massacre, and running from everything they had known before, including—maybe especially—the Campbells. Bobby had given them refuge more times than he could count, and talked John down from more than one raving, drunken edge. More than once he’d been tempted to wipe the Winchesters off of his contact list, but he’d always turned the other cheek—generally after giving John a matching black eye—for Dean’s sake. God knew that the kid needed more people in his life he could trust to always be there.   
  
Maybe that was why Dean had latched onto Sam so easy.   
  
Bobby wanted to trust Dean, he did. He wanted to believe that Sam was just a harmless kid on the wrong side of the ASC (though, coward that he was, he tried not to think of how fucking likely that was, that someone  _innocent_ could end up in that place). But he didn’t know if he, the book he’d sent, or an expert could give Dean the intel he needed to help Sam. He’d seen only a fraction of what Sam had survived, and from that alone, he wasn’t sure that anything could really give them all the answers.   
  
He wished he could believe that Dean would call him if he were getting in over his head, but Dean had always been strange about that kid. Obsessed, yeah (learned it from the best), protective, and defensive as hell—though of course he’d had to be, with John breathing down his neck. The few times Bobby’d tried to nail down the details—whys, wherefores, benefits, threats—with him, Dean had just looked at him and said, simply, “He’s Sam,” as though that explained it all.   
  
Bobby’s question tonight about hunting had been partly genuine, partly to see if Dean’s priorities had been drastically altered in the few months Sam had been with him. Dean was a passionate and damn good hunter (even if he was too fucking young to be regularly courting death from the things that went bump in the night. Kid needed someone to watch his back), and if  _that_ key personality trait had been changed, that would have been a clear warning sign. If Bobby had been a monster, making sure the person he was with had no interest in killing supernaturals would have been high on his priority list.   
  
It hadn’t sounded like Dean didn’t  _care_ anymore, but even the fact he was on indefinite hiatus prickled the back of Bobby’s neck. What if Sam was working some kind of mojo on him?   
  
Bobby hated the ASC. He’d cut ties with them in every unofficial way, though he kept his license and membership if only because it was stupid to throw away the resources and approval of a nationwide organization like the ASC before it was absolutely necessary. If giants actually existed, he’d probably try to kill them, but he wasn’t going to start kicking the metaphorical ones while they were sleeping. He didn’t approve of their camp, their practices, or most of their personalities, but what if they had been right this once? What if the excesses that probably killed more than their share of vanilla humans and harmless supernaturals also served to suppress the powers of a monster like Sam? Dean had rescued Sam from inhumane treatment and torture with the best of intentions, but what happened when you took a monster out of Freak Camp?   
  
Bobby didn’t like it, but that didn’t change the world or what he’d seen. Life had taught him it was better to be safe than sorry (or, you know, disemboweled). So he felt like a damn fool now for letting those boys keep  _roadtripping_ , bringing Sam into contact with God knew how many people, when he could have Dean under his spell already or, for that matter, be doing something freaky without even being aware of it.   
  
But Bobby had let Dean go, so now he just had to hope they’d  _eventually_ swing his way so he could take his own look at Sam. He didn’t know what he’d find—hard to imagine the kid he’d seen on the floor of that interrogation room standing in his living room or sitting next to Dean in the Impala—or what he’d do if he  _did_  find something. He hoped to God, for Dean’s sake, that there was nothing to find.   
  
~*~   
  
Sam couldn’t stop listening to Dean. Even through the closed door, even when he lifted his hands to cover his ears, he could still hear bits and pieces of the conversation.   
  
Dean wasn’t hunting because of Sam. Because Sam was weak, useless, and scared and couldn’t—no, that wasn’t true, Sam  _could_ interact with reals, he had just that day.   
  
It wasn’t nearly enough. Nothing he did could really be enough for Dean, but he was trying and he had to believe that, whatever Hunter Singer said, Dean would keep giving Sam the chance to prove himself. Sam was just grateful that he had never heard  _freak_ ,  _FREACS_ , or  _ASC_ on Dean’s end.   
  
Even after Dean stopped talking, he didn’t come back right away. Sam dropped his hands, but couldn’t make himself relax. Somehow his knees had pulled up to his chest (all the better to press his palms over his ears, try to drown out things he wasn’t supposed to hear), so Sam wrapped his arms around them to try to ease the trembling.   
  
When he heard the keycard slide in the lock, Sam started, even though he’d been waiting—hoping desperately—for Dean to come back, watching the door like the power of his gaze alone could draw Dean back to him. When he saw Dean’s drawn face, the tired lines around his eyes—only twenty and so tired already, Sam’s fault, the toll of having a monster so close—Sam wondered for one horrible moment if Dean knew he had heard him through the walls, if Hunter Singer had said he should punish Sam for eavesdropping and being a useless piece of filth.   
  
But Dean just rubbed at his mouth, as though he could force it into a smile. He dropped the phone on the table and shrugged out of his jacket before crawling back onto the bed. Sam hugged his legs tighter, not sure if he should get out, or move more to one side, but Dean stopped, facing him, one hand over his clasped fingers, the other rubbing Sam’s shoulders and neck.   
  
Sam relaxed into that touch, as the heavy pressure of anxiety eased from him. Whatever Hunter Singer had said, Dean still wasn’t afraid to dirty his hands by touching him, didn’t mind providing that direct comfort for a needy monster. Hunter Singer had never hurt Sam, but Sam still felt more afraid of him than of any other hunter. No hunter had more influence over Dean. He talked about Bobby constantly, far more than about his own father, whom he hadn’t mentioned since he picked Sam up. Even though Sam had come to believe that Dean really didn’t want to hurt him, no matter how stupid Sam was, he also knew that if anyone could change Dean’s mind and remind him of his responsibilities as a hunter, it would be Hunter Singer.   
  
“It’s okay,” Dean said, quietly. “It was just Bobby, calling for a check-up. He wants to make sure we’re still plugging along, y’know, ‘cause he cares. Doesn’t want us dying in a bloody crash or cracking up or anything.” His mouth quirked, and Sam felt another layer of tension ease. If Dean could laugh, he wasn’t angry. Not at Sam. “I told him we’re doing fine, because we are, y’know? Better than fine,  _awesome_ . Especially you, dude, you were so fucking brave today.” Dean squeezed his shoulder, Sam made himself smile. It would be okay. They would be okay.   
  
Dean smiled back, wider this time but still sad, and then turned and flopped down on the bed next to Sam, their shoulders bumping. He kept one hand on Sam’s leg and reached for the remote with the other.   
  
“So, did you get to hear how mongeese giggle their way through dates?”   
  
“Yes, Dean.” Sam hadn’t had much success paying attention to the television once Dean left the room, but he remembered the high-pitched noise the little animals had been making and how it was called giggling. He wondered if real human giggling sounded the same way.   
  
The program had changed to a special on volcanoes. Dean frowned, finger hovering over the change channel button as computer-generated lava overwhelmed the ancient city of Pompeii. He kept glancing at Sam out of the corners of his eyes, and then sighed, visibly forcing his posture to relax. His voice was soft. “Whaddaya say we call it a night?”   
  
If Dean didn’t want to talk about his phone call, it wasn’t any of Sam’s business. Even if he had decided that Sam deserved a beating or shouldn’t sleep that night, it really wouldn’t have been Sam’s business, but Sam was relieved nonetheless.   
  
“Okay.”   
  
“Cool. You need to use the bathroom before lights out?”   
  
Sam shook his head, and Dean smiled and brushed him on the shoulder as he got up.   
  
Dean had been touching him more to reassure him earlier during the day; Dean was always touching him, and it felt so good, but Sam still had the same reaction as he had at Dean’s first touch, felt his cheeks warm and fought the urge to duck his head. It was hard, but worth it, because his reaction seemed to make Dean’s mouth relax into a more natural smile, and his step to the bathroom was livelier.   
  
In their daily life, waiting for Dean to finish in the bathroom was one of the times when Sam had the most trouble accepting that his life was better now and it would stay better. He couldn't let himself believe, as he waited, that Dean was going to come back to him when he left the bathroom. That Dean wouldn’t just stay on his side of the bed, stiff and distant, but lie down next to him, reach out and slip his arm over Sam’s stomach or chest beneath the covers, as though he really did want Sam that close. Sam couldn’t believe it, and yet, every night, it was true. And only then, with the reassuring warmth of Dean at his back and their legs tangled up together, could Sam truly believe this was real.   
  
And Sam never had to worry about what might happen in the night. Dean was true to his word, as he had always been, and his hands never moved lower than Sam's stomach. And though Sam tried not to think about it—Dean had fixed the PG Rule and made it quite clear he didn't want to go any further—sometimes in the first moments, Dean settled in and pressed against him, a deep part of Sam  _yearned_ for Dean to roll on top of him and ease his boxers down. Dean wouldn't make it hurt any more than it had to, and he would hold Sam during and afterward, and he would take  _care_ of him...and Sam fervently wanted Dean to take him that way. Especially on a night like this, when the phone call had reminded him of his uncertain future—Sam wanted to be claimed and belong to Dean in every way, and to know that, no matter what happened next, Dean had had him first.   
  
But when Dean came back to the bed, he wrapped Sam up in his arms just like every other night and showed no particular interest in taking what was his. Sam listened to him breathing until the rise and fall of his chest against Sam’s back evened out, and then let himself drift.   
  
Dean didn't want sex from Sam. Even though Dean fucked other women and men—and Sam didn’t completely understand how that worked, when Dean was so good and kind—he cared so much about Sam that he didn’t want to hurt him in that way, didn’t realize he could deal with the pain. Sam was grateful Dean cared so much about him, but he still wished Dean would fuck him. The pain would be worth it.   
  
Sam had always thought that he remained untouched at least partially because the idea of breaking the PG Rule revolted Dean. And then he woke from muddled dreams of Hunter Singer sliding a collar over his neck and mongooses overwhelming Boulder, with an unmistakable rod of hot flesh pressing against his hip.   
  
Sam went absolutely still, even as he felt his heart rate pick up. While he couldn’t help flashing to training sessions, he wasn’t actually panicked. This was Dean—he could never mistake that scent, Dean's shampoo and soap and what was yet  _Dean_ underneath, or how Dean's body felt against his. It meant  _safety_ , it meant Sam could relax when he closed his eyes, because no one was watching them and Dean would never allow anyone else close. And it still meant safety, even though that had gained a new definition.   
  
Sam was very calm. He wasn't afraid, in spite of how his heart was still pounding in his ears. Dean wouldn't hurt him more than he had to, and afterward things would be even better, because Sam would know for certain he belonged to Dean. Nothing and no one could change that, and he would never have to worry again.   
  
All he wanted to do now was push back, gently, rub against Dean until he was in place against his ass, until Dean woke up and rode him the rest of the way. But he couldn't move, because Dean had put the PG Rule into place and if Dean wanted to break it, that was his right, but Sam couldn't.   
  
So Sam closed his eyes and held still, hoping Dean would wake up soon and take what he had in his arms, what he was ready for.   
  
Dean was still breathing in the slow, regular rhythm of sleep, hot gusts of air brushing over Sam's ear, a sensation almost like a tickle. Sam didn't fidget. Dean shifted slightly, pushing his leg further between Sam's, right hand knotting in Sam's shirt above his heart. He made an inarticulate noise, somewhere between a grunt and a groan. Dropping his head, he nuzzled Sam's neck with a drag of moist lips and the light scratch of his stubble. Sam shivered. Dean was so close now...but not actually awake yet, still so far away from what Sam wanted him to do more and more. Although…this was clearly what he wanted, right? Sam had the evidence right there, harder to ignore by the moment. If Sam were just to adjust to make the process easier, to accommodate Dean, surely that wouldn't count as breaking the Rule.   
  
Holding his breath, Sam shifted his body by degrees imperceptible even if Dean were awake. Just a little more, and Dean's prick slid to rest solidly against his ass through his boxers. Sam bit his lip and clenched his hands to keep from audibly inhaling. Dean was so warm, he could feel it going through him, the heat coalescing and building in the low pit of his stomach. _So close, so close..._   
  
Sam didn't have to move any more. Dean was flexing all the way down his body, from his arm squeezing and dragging against Sam's shirt, to his knees rubbing against the inside of Sam's, and his hips—yes, his hips, _there_ —grinding forward with aching slowness. Sam caught his breath, his heart thumping and head spinning, even as he lay very still. This was it, this was really it, any second now Dean would push his thighs apart.   
  
Dean moaned right in his ear, voice husky and rough, still lost in sleep: " _Sam_ —"   
  
And that was when Sam lost his resolute control and pushed back, hard onto Dean's thrust.  _Yes, Dean, yes, take me_ —   
  
Sam knew the instant Dean woke up. One moment his body was coiling around Sam's, his breath and voice groaning in Sam's ear, and the next instant everything went dead still. Where he had been loose and sliding against every inch of Sam, Dean was now completely rigid, frozen. Sam shut his eyes, his heart rate jumping now for an entirely different reason, and focused on keeping his breaths as slow and deep as though he were still asleep. He could do that, and then Dean wouldn't know he'd broken this _very important_ Rule. How many times had Dean emphasized that? And Sam had had enough men assure him that their boners were his fault, always would be every time they pushed him down, because he'd been asking for it with his slut lips, hands, ass...   
  
For a long moment Dean was just as frozen ( _his dick still hard and undeniable in the space between Sam's cheeks_ )—and then he started to withdraw. Slowly, so as not to jostle Sam at all, he eased their limbs apart. Sam was so stunned he couldn't process what was happening until Dean had rolled off the bed, walked barefoot to the bathroom, and shut the door behind him.   
  
In the cold space where Dean had been, alone in the bed, Sam found it difficult to absorb what had just happened. Dean had been  _right there_ , ready to take him, so close—and then he had woken up and remembered what Sam was, that he didn't want to dirty his dick sticking it in any part of a freak. Even though Sam had heard his name, and it had sounded like Dean had known exactly whom he was touching before he woke up.   
  
The heartache of truth was familiar to him, and he pushed it aside, for the far more worrying question. Had Dean known he was awake? Had he realized what Sam had done? Or was he so revolted that Sam's body had produced that reaction in him that he would take the other bed when he came out, and never again —   
  
_You stupid little whore, look what you did. You broke the Rule, so you deserve to lose this. Stupid, stupid, useless whore, no wonder Dean doesn't want you._   
  
Sam hadn't meant to move from where Dean left him—it was important to pretend he was asleep, or at least waiting passively for whatever Dean decided to do with him—but now it felt like all the happiness of the past two weeks was crumbling and falling away. He rolled over, face down on the pillow. It would be a mercy he didn't deserve if he smothered himself before Dean reappeared.   
  
When he heard the door reopen quietly, Sam stayed as still as before and listened to Dean's steps approach the bed. For a long minute, there was silence, no motion at all; Sam was relaxed, waiting to submit to whatever sort of blow Dean chose, or a quick shove to throw him to the floor—but then something totally unexpected happened.   
  
The bed dipped and creaked as Dean lay back down. Sam stiffened in surprise, but there was still nothing. Not a sound or touch.   
  
Almost ten minutes later, Sam dared to lift his head from the pillow. What he saw was Dean lying on his side, facing away from him, a good foot of space between them.   
  
Sam rolled to his own side, both amazed and baffled. He had never thought Dean would sleep next to him after that, but seeing his back spiked a hurt Sam hadn't thought he'd still be able to feel, when expecting so much worse. He didn't understand either Dean’s actions or his own reactions, but he had made far too many mistakes already tonight—he had thought he was doing so well asking for pie, and then he went and fucked up this _so much more important thing_ —so he tried, desperately, to be grateful for Dean's forgiveness and mercy, and sleep.   
  
~*~   
  
It sounded as though Sam were asleep. It didn't sound like he was having a panic attack or a quiet meltdown from _almost being raped_  by the one person in the world he had thought he could trust.   
  
Dean had never before experienced the urge to hurt himself or anything else drastic, but he had some pretty vivid ideas now. Even after all his fuck-ups in the last two months, he hadn't realized he was  _this_  much of a bastard, that he'd  _molest Sam in his sleep_ . What the  _fuck_ , Dean Winchester.   
  
And even with the clear evidence of his bad intentions before him, Dean was getting in the same fucking bed. He'd thought about moving to the other one—getting the fuck away from Sam, who clearly wasn't safe even with Dean asleep—because sliding back in with Sam felt like courting disaster, like implying that he was okay with it happening again. And if he couldn't trust himself—and he couldn't, fuck—how could Sam ever trust him? How could he  _let_ Sam trust a rapist bastard who got it up around underage trauma victims?  _Fuck._   
  
But he hadn't in the end, because they'd left the shotguns on the other bed, and at least Dean's duffel, and if Dean tried moving that, Sam would wake up. He never slept through much—it was a miracle he hadn't woken up ( _when you were about to shove your dick in his ass, Winchester_ ) before—and Dean didn't want Sam to wake up and get that  _abandoned_ look, not when he was moving for Sam. Or worse, see Sam look at him, and know he hadn't really been asleep, that he knew that Dean was no better than the bastards he had barely survived in camp.   
  
This would be the last night Dean violated Sam's space. He had told himself the way he wanted to touch and hold Sam was innocent—see how the truth had come out. God fucking  _shit_ .   
  
There was no way Sam hadn't noticed that. If he flinched and was fucking  _triggered_ when Dean moved too quickly around him or raised his voice, Dean couldn't imagine the effect of him  _rubbing his hard-on against his ass_  would have.  _I trust you_ , Sam had said, who had no reason to trust anyone—least of all him, now.   
  
Dean couldn't imagine where they would go from here. Forget keeping his pervert ass in his own bed—how could he look himself in the face if he kept Sam with him after this? Even if, by some miracle, Sam  _hadn't_ been aware of what nearly happened, Dean would—he couldn't lie to himself anymore about his intentions. After all the horrors Sam had survived, he deserved to be around someone with enough basic decency not to molest him in his sleep. Someone to keep him safe from  _Dean_ , hell.   
  
He probably would have decided, sometime before dawn, that the best thing he could do was to take Sam to Pastor Jim's to see if they could set something up (maybe Dean could do work and hunts for him, in exchange for Sam's room, board, and privacy)—when he heard what he'd been dreading since he woke up with his dick against Sam’s ass. A whimper and a sob, from the other side of the bed.   
  
Dean froze, as taut as he had been when he first lay back down. It had taken a while—at least an hour had passed, maybe more—but he'd been right, no way he could have gotten away with shit like that without Sam being traumatized again. And what could Dean do? The last thing that would be reassuring to Sam now was _Dean_ , let alone Dean touching him. He had no way to help Sam other than keeping his fucking hands off ( _too late, too late_ ), and didn’t that fucking hurt? Listening to this, what he'd done to Sam, was the least he deserved.   
  
Sam was panting now, anguished little keens and sobs escaping as he tossed back and forth. "No, no—you can't—don't, you're not allowed,  _Dean won't let you_ —"   
  
Dean's heart almost stopped. He’d heard Sam begging him for help or mercy before, but this sounded like something else entirely.   
  
"Dean, Dean please, don't let them..." Sam let out a wretched, hopeless sob. After all, Dean had never once stopped those bastards from hurting him. But, though he could barely call himself better than them right now, he wasn’t going to let Sam down this time.   
  
He snapped on the lamp before rolling over—he wasn't sure if Sam would be glad to see his face or not, but at least he'd know none of those other assholes were in the room—then, hating himself, laid his hand on Sam's shoulder.   
  
"Sam. Sam, wake up, it's not real. None of them are here." _Just me, but I swear to God I won't touch you like that again, I'll cut it off myself first._   
  
The moment Dean's hand fell on him, Sam's cries stifled, and his twisting stopped. Dean pulled his hand back, quickly, hoping Sam was already awake.   
  
Sam panted hard, head turned to stare at nothing—then, in a small voice, "Dean?"   
  
"Yeah," he said, with an effort, as though he’d just been butted in the chest by a minotaur. "Yeah, it's just—just me."   
  
Then Sam rolled over, grabbed the front of Dean's shirt in both hands, and broke down sobbing.   
  
After that, there wasn't any question about what Dean should do. This moment wasn't about him and his fuck-ups. He settled back down on the bed, wrapped an arm over Sam's back, and soothed him as he had every other night he’d woken up—or Dean had had to wake him up—from nightmares. "You're okay now, you're here, I got you out...not gonna let anyone hurt you, Sammy..."   
  
He did feel surprised when Sam quieted as soon as Dean started talking to him, just like any other night. He didn’t completely trust it, but he was glad Sam wasn't sobbing anymore, only sucking in ragged, shuddering breaths. His grip on his shirt never loosened.   
  
Unlike other nights, though, Sam started to speak as soon as the tears slowed enough to let out words, though he never opened his eyes. "I'm sorry," he choked out. "I'm so sorry, please—"   
  
"Sam," Dean said, anguished, "Sam,  _don't_ , you've got nothing to be sorry for. Don't."   
  
Sam didn't seem to have heard. "Please, I'm so sorry, I won't do it again, just—don't go, please don't go—"   
  
"Sam..." How had he known what Dean had been thinking? Didn't Sam get that Dean just wanted to keep him safe from everyone?   
  
But Sam was crying again, shaking his head. "Please don't go, please, please, I'll do anything, I'll be good—"   
  
"Okay, okay." Dean couldn't listen to Sam begging like that. He pulled him closer, shushing into his ear. "I'm not going anywhere, I swear. It's gonna be okay, Sam."   
  
As Sam quieted once more, breathing easier and relaxing against him, Dean couldn’t hate himself quite as much. He was nowhere near as good as Sam deserved, he wasn't as safe as he should have been, but he was still the best Sam had. Sam didn't have anyone else. Dean would just have to do better.   
  
~*~   
  
The next day was quiet. They drove straight on the main highway, no bypasses or divergences, Dean surrendering to wherever the road took them. They didn’t pull out the map, and Sam didn’t read, sitting with his knees drawn up and arms loosely wrapped around them. Dean tried twice to turn on a tape, but he shut it off both times before the first song ended. They’d had days like this before, Dean told himself, and they would again.   
  
Lunch was nearly silent, with some burgers that were too greasy even for Dean’s taste, but Sam ate his without any complaints, faces or changes in speed, and Dean couldn’t make himself ask how it had been, in case Sam answered, yes, it had tasted rancid and he had eaten it anyway because it was food Dean bought him. Dean had never known all the ways he was a coward, until Sam.   
  
And if he kept thinking cheery thoughts like that, the day was  _sure_ to take a swing for the better. He could always recognize a winning strategy, usually right before he blacked out for the night.   
  
They had just gotten back on the highway after lunch when Dean spotted a roadside vendor and pulled over. He wanted something to wash the taste out of their mouths, and he was desperate for anything that might start a conversation, get a word out of Sam, or earn him a smile. The back of the truck was loaded with watermelons and cantaloupes—new to Sam, but Dean didn’t feel like bringing out his machete and massacring fruit on the side of a public highway—but there were also baskets of strawberries. Sam might be tight-lipped about what he liked (besides that one time he had said he liked sticking around Dean; Dean had to remember that now when part of him wondered if they wouldn’t both be better off anywhere else), but the first time he’d bitten into a strawberry from a gas station fresh fruit cup, he hadn’t been able to hide his wide-eyed delight. And that strawberry had been a pale, pre-processed imitation of the ripe, red, irregular fruits the withered old fruitseller had to offer. Dean bought a couple cartons and took them back to the Impala, beckoning for Sam to join him on the hood.   
  
Sam climbed up carefully, never planting his shoes directly on the metal, and Dean set the strawberries between them. "Dig in," he said, then added with a valiant attempt at lightheartedness, "You better not make me eat more than half of these."   
  
A flicker of an almost-smile flashed over Sam’s face, and with thin fingers he plucked a small berry on top. Even the hint of a smile warmed Dean through far better than the sun; he hadn’t realized how much he’d been braced for the worst, afraid he’d broken or damaged Sam or what they had between them. A close call—too fucking close—and another chance Dean didn’t deserve.   
  
Despite all Dean’s fuck-ups, Sam was doing better. Almost two months since he’d pulled Sam out, and his face had more color, bones still stark and protruding, but less like a skeleton with skin. But most of all, he looked...calmer. Almost happy, even today. Dean caught that smile more often now, and Sam felt comfortable enough to lean back against the windshield instead of hunching forward. His eyes were raised and wandering easily over the fields, nervous only when another car pulled up to the fruitseller’s truck or a semi barreled by.   
  
"These are the real deal," Dean said. His throat felt a little dry from the silence, and his heart did a funny, nervous flip when Sam's eyes flashed to him, but at least he could get words out again. He held up a berry. “No pesticides or hormones or any of that weird chemical crap. All natural.” It didn't matter what he rambled about, it could have been the history of dictionaries, and Sam would have followed with the same rapt attention. But he liked to talk and have Sam´s eyes on him. See him smile. Feel that they  _could_ talk again. “Not as pretty as the ones you get in the supermarket, but much more authentic.”   
  
As he talked, Dean watched Sam's hands. They picked out a new strawberry, twisted off the leaves, and brought it to his mouth for two clean bites. Something about the gesture niggled at him, but it wasn't until the third time that he realized what he was seeing: Sam nudging aside the fat, bright strawberries as he dug out the smaller, bruised ones.   
  
Dean stopped mid-word, and his hand fastened on Sam's wrist, catching him halfway over the carton. Sam didn't flinch this time, but he froze, his breath audibly hitching.   
  
Dean's heartbeat was making his ears ring, but he said quietly, "Stop that."   
  
Then he reached with his other hand, as gently as possible, to uncurl Sam's fingers. The malformed strawberry rolled down the hood, and Dean pressed the biggest fruit he could find into Sam's palm in its place. He looked up to Sam's eyes, praying he would see comprehension there instead of that awful blank confusion.   
  
At first he thought bewilderment was all he would get, but then he saw something light in Sam’s eyes: it could have been acceptance, realization, comprehension, but Dean didn’t get a chance to figure it out. The next second, Sam turned his hand over, folding Dean's hand over the strawberry, lifted it, and pressed his lips to the back of Dean’s hand.


	14. Chapter 14

Taking Sam’s picture was the hardest part.   
  
First of all, finding a good enough camera was a bitch. The cheap throw-away cameras wouldn’t do—Sam both deserved and needed the best—and the ones in the first shop he tried, Sam in tow, were frankly more expensive than he could justify spending for a couple shots.   
  
He was almost about to bite the bullet and bring Sam to a shop to take a normal sort of passport picture—even though John’s handed-down paranoia and his own common sense said that wasn’t the best idea to advertise what they were doing and stick around in a town that long—when he remembered the camera they’d picked up in a pawn shop when they’d had to make IDs fast and dirty, and then later it came in useful against a weird Venus flytrap thing that only appeared in mirrors and through camera lenses—so John had made enough space for it in the Impala with their bags of rock salt and the shotguns.   
  
But even after Dean dug up and put together the camera—new film was not nearly as expensive as the cameras themselves, pricey fuckers—the second problem was Sam.   
  
Dean explained what he was doing and why, and at the time, Sam had looked relieved, a strange light of hope gleaming in his eye making Dean kick himself for not thinking of this earlier. But when it came to actually taking the picture, he couldn’t get Sam to look like anything but a terrified sixteen-year old who’d been through hell and was facing it again.   
  
They’d pinned a sheet up over the hotel window, and Sam stood before it uneasily, eyes locked on anything but Dean’s face.   
  
“C’mon, Sam,” Dean said, finger on the shutter. “Smile.”   
  
Sam tried, forcing his lips to curl up. Dean took two pictures, and then lowered the camera with a sigh. Sam looked like someone had stabbed him in the stomach and he was trying his best to smile for a picture anyway. Dean set the camera on the end table, grabbed Sam’s hand, and pulled him over to the bed. He didn’t want to try to talk about this with Sam standing awkwardly in front of the blank white backdrop.   
  
“Sam, what’s the problem?”   
  
Sam ducked his head. “I’m trying to look n-normal. L-like a real, and I d-don’t know how, and with the c-camera. I’m s—I don’t know what you want.”   
  
“Just look like yourself, Sammy, that’s all we need here.” Dean brushed his hair back from his face. Sure, he probably didn’t need to do that, but it would look better for the picture, okay? And he didn’t think that it would hurt Sam for both of them to keep believing that was the only reason. “The camera’s not going to hurt you. Can’t steal your soul.”   
  
“It can s-see ghosts,” Sam said. Then his mouth quirked in a real smile, but it was bitter as three-day-old black coffee and Dean wished—impulsively and uselessly, not a thought to linger over—that he could kiss the taste out of Sam’s mouth. “Probably don’t have a soul to steal.”   
  
“Hey, hey, hey!  _Don’t_ say stuff like that.” Didn’t it figure that when Sam started cracking jokes (and that had  _better_ have been a joke), they sliced open Dean’s heart as sure as quick as Sam’s nightmares. “It’s not a problem, Sam, seriously. And you look fine,”  _you look fucking fantastic_ , “just the way you are. What’s really stressing you out?”   
  
“Dean, should we…” Sam’s hands twisted together in his lap. “Should we really be doing this? I mean, I’m a…isn’t this illegal? I don’t want…you shouldn’t get into trouble over me.”   
  
Dean gave Sam a cocky smile, but he kept his movements slow and gentle when he reached out to take his hand. “Sam, we’re Winchesters. Illegal is our middle name. I had my first fake ID when I was younger than you. But seriously, I will always protect you, do you believe me?”   
  
“Yes, Dean. You promised.”   
  
“Good, and here’s another promise. Doing this will make things easier. This will help. This is gonna give you what you need to protect yourself until I come for you. I don’t want them to come for you, I’ll fight them down to my last breath, but if that can’t happen, you  _do_ have power. You survived them, Sam. And every day you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met. Do you believe me?”   
  
Sam nodded sharply. And still didn’t look up.   
  
“Okay. Let’s do something different. Just look at the camera, okay. And try not to look like you think the camera’s going to knife you.”   
  
Sam didn’t look happy. There were still dark circles under and that depthless fear in his eyes. But the photos were good enough that after another fifteen minutes of Dean moving around and talking aimlessly to try to get him to loosen up, he called it a night.   
  
The pictures, when they came back, worked for what he needed—it wasn’t like he was forging a passport or anything, just a couple IDs—though he realized, with a gut-deep jerk, that he had forgotten about Sam’s tattoo.   
  
The numbers seemed more stark and condemnatory on the photo beneath Sam’s dark eyes.   
  
Dean had to crop the photos he was using, but he kept some of the duplicates just to remind himself.   
  
~*~   
  
It started with a nightmare.   
  
As Sam had gotten more comfortable with the outside world (or at least a little less paralyzed, less often brought to the edge of a panic attack by ordering breakfast), Dean had hoped Sam’s nightmares would lighten up. Maybe only happen once a week instead of four or five times, or at least stop jerking him out of sleep, his throat raspy from withheld screams.   
  
When it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, Dean realized how stupid he had been to think it would be that easy. For eleven years in that hellhole, Sam had been terrified every fucking day of his life. And worse, he’d been so used to the pain, the fear, and the misery that it hadn’t even registered. It had been  _normal_ .   
  
It hurt, remembering their meetings over the years, how fucking  _calm_ Sam had been compared to how he was now. Dean had seen fleeting shades of terror over Sam’s face—reserved for sightings of guards and hunters—and the familiar, utter blankness he’d tried his best to break, but it had never clicked for him that those two expressions hadn’t been just a bad day for Sam. Those had been his  _life_ .   
  
Dean still didn’t have all the stories; he didn’t  _know_ exactly what had gone on, or if he could handle knowing what had made Sam like this. Could he keep joking with waitstaff, filling the Impala’s tank and coaxing Sam to look him in the eye, if he knew? Didn’t the marks on Sam’s body, the texture on his back that Dean felt even through Sam’s T-shirt at night, tell him enough? For eleven years, those fucknuts had been free to do whatever they wanted to his wonderful, breakable Sam, who had never been able to lift a finger to stop them.   
  
Of course he was still terrified now; of course he didn’t believe he was really safe with Dean. Sam didn’t  _know_ what safe was. And even if he said he felt safe with Dean, that didn’t mean his body or his subconscious, the parts of him that had been fucked up the worst, could now or ever believe that. If Dean was going to be honest with himself, he didn’t actually think he had what it took to  _fix_ that part of Sam. Just because he would spend the rest of his life trying didn’t mean that it would be enough. But, in the interest of getting through every day, giving Sam the best he had, he tried not to think of the big picture, focusing instead on how many times he could wheedle Sammy into smiling that day, or help him relax a little more the next time they walked into a gas station. Things he could do. Places in Sam’s life he could actually see improvements, day by day, because nighttime was completely out of his control.   
  
The nightmares, like the panic attacks, became just another fucked-up routine. And when Sam stopped trying to stifle his sobs and fretting about keeping Dean up, it felt better, more like they were dealing with this together and less like Sam was suffering and Dean could do fuck-all about it. Though in Dean’s opinion, Sam was still too fucking quiet once he woke up.   
  
Some nights, Dean reminded Sam that he could tell him what he’d dreamed, though he always stressed this wasn’t—hell no—a rule or order. The PTSD book said that sometimes talking about the past and nightmares could help “lance the wound,” and Dean believed it, after its advice about waking Sam up had let Dean pull him out of more than one nightmare without causing a panic attack. And while the idea of hearing the details of Sam’s nightmares was personally terrifying—Dean was pretty sure that Sam’s nightmares could be his, too, with just a little prompting—Dean would do anything if it might help.   
  
Sam never took him up on the offer, until the week after Bobby’s call and the clusterfuck night that had followed. Dean had since been creeping around like he was avoiding Bobby’s boobytraps, desperately avoiding positions (physical and otherwise) likely to lead to violations of the PG rule. He couldn’t quite believe that Sam still wanted to be around him, trusted him, that there wasn’t going to be some kind of profound psychological damage because of Dean’s fucking horny body, but when the withdrawal of contact made Sam sleep worse—what choice did Dean have?   
  
At least, when Sam woke crying and shuddering, lost for terrible minutes not even knowing Dean or where he was, Dean didn’t have to worry about anything fucking  _inappropriate_ getting in the way.   
  
The night that changed Dean's perspective on what he could and couldn't do started like any of the others. Dean woke to Sam’s steady whimpers (fucking awful noises, worse because they were half-stifled, as though he didn’t dare scream) and his body twitching as he tried to curl in on himself. Dean sat up, tugging the sheet so it wasn’t tangled around Sam, then rested his hand lightly on Sam’s shoulder, calling his name steadily—and wasn’t that a fucking challenge, to keep his voice even when he wanted to scream and hurt something that existed only in Sam’s head and the past—until Sam heard him.   
  
His voice broke through all at once, and Sam flinched away, pulling himself into a sitting position and dragging in ragged breaths, his face averted. Dean let him go; Sam would let him know when he wanted to be touched.   
  
“It’s all right,” he repeated, the same fucking hollow words he offered every night ( _of course it’s not fucking all right, nothing that happened to you can ever be made all right_ ), but they were all he had. “You’re okay now, you’re out, we’re on the other fucking side of the country, Sam, and I’m never going to let them touch you again.” He didn’t have much, but he could, at least, assure Sam he wasn’t  _there_ anymore.   
  
Sam shuddered, dropping his face into his hands as his breaths broke into sobs.   
  
Shit. Since last week, Dean had tried to wait for Sam to reach for him before putting his hands all over the kid, but at times like this, when Dean wasn’t sure if Sam was hearing him at  _all_ , he couldn’t stand to watch Sam locked alone in his own head. Dean drew closer, rubbing his palm lightly over his shoulders, trying not to think about the furrowed skin beneath the fabric.   
  
“Hey. Hey, Sammy. I got you now, right? You’re safe here, you’re gonna be okay.”   
  
And then Sam collapsed, curling against his chest and clutching handfuls of Dean’s t-shirt like that was the only substantial thing he dared touch, and Dean pulled him in, because dammit, Sammy deserved  _more_ , anything Dean could give.   
  
Sam cried for a while, and while at least he didn’t seem to be smothering his cries, the sounds were still godforsakenly hopeless. Like he hadn’t heard a word Dean said, or finally knew how empty they were, that Dean’s best was bound to let him down one day.   
  
When the sobs eased back into deeper, ragged breaths, Sam whispered, “I dreamed,” and Dean’s hand froze on the back of his head. They stayed like that, still, for no more than the count of five breaths, and then Sam took another deep shaky breath and continued. “I dreamed th-they came to take me b-back.”   
  
Dean felt ice forming down his spine and spreading to his extremities. He bent his ear close to Sam’s trembling mouth, barely stopping himself from tightening his hold on Sam’s shoulders.   
  
Sam’s words were a thready half-whisper against his shirt. He made no effort to speak louder. Dean wondered if Sam half-hoped he wouldn’t hear. “We were in Boulder.”   
  
"I wouldn't let them, Sammy," Dean whispered.  _Gentle, gentle_ , he tried to be, when he wanted to make threats and promises, wanted to vow retribution and snap necks. "No one will ever take you away from me.”   
  
"Y-you...weren't there." Sam sniffed. "You h-hadn't left me, not f-for good, but just like an e-errand or run. They k-kicked in the door. I couldn't d-do anything. I couldn't stop them. I couldn't even c-call for you. I just...froze."   
  
"It's not gonna happen, Sam," Dean said vehemently. "Fucking never. I’ll get them—I won't let them near you. And you won't freeze up, you get to a damn phone or run like hell and find me, or fucking fight them off, but they’re never gonna get you.”   
  
Sam was crying openly again, head shaking against Dean’s chest. "I can't...I can't fight them. I  _can't_ , Dean."   
  
There were lines. Sometimes Dean could even tell where they were. And he knew, for the time being, that he had to back off.   
  
“It’s okay,” he said, rubbing Sam’s shoulders. “They’re not here, no one but me. They won’t get you.”   
  
Some nights they turned to the TV for some kind of mindless distraction, like the Weather Channel and Bowflex ads (fuck, Dean missed the days he could flip to a porn channel and just stop thinking, but now even the idea of doing that with Sam beside him had the same effect as a bucket of ice water to the crotch—just one of the many things that had been turned on its head since he’d gotten Sam). But tonight Dean couldn’t make himself reach for the remote when they lay back down, Dean keeping one arm curled around Sam, who tucked his head to Dean’s chest.   
  
Dean didn’t know how Sam could roll over and get back to sleep after a nightmare like that. He certainly couldn’t do more than drowse fitfully, his own nightmares picking up the sounds of Sam’s weeping. But that night, when Sam’s sobs slowed into the even breathing of sleep at last, he had something else on his mind.   
  
Sam had said he couldn’t fight, and it occurred to Dean that it wasn’t just that the hunter-bastards in Sam’s head were stronger, faster, or armed. It was also that Sam didn’t have the tools to resist.   
  
Where could he go, if Dean weren’t there? Sure, Bobby would help—fuck, Bobby had better help, or Dean would come back from wherever he’d been and deal out some Winchester vengeance—but Sam didn’t even know how to find him, and what other options did Sam have?   
  
He didn’t have money, weapons, the location of Dean’s safehouses, a functioning ID, or even a working knowledge of a world of normal people. Sam didn’t  _have_ these resources. And while understanding the fucking strange world into which Dean had dragged him was probably one of the most important, and the one they worked on every day, Dean should damn well work on getting him  _everything_ . And then maybe next time those bastards showed up, in Sam’s dreams or otherwise, he would have more options than fighting or being taken.   
  
Dean had never once deliberately thought about the laws that had defined his childhood. He couldn’t remember once when he and Da—John had talked about when they should change a PO box or replace their old IDs. The only time he could remember  _talking_ about the emergency procedures—not just being reminded of them before John walked out the door for another hunt—was after the CPS fiasco when he was thirteen.   
  
But tonight, with Sam sleeping exhausted under his arm and the dawn still far away, he had plenty of time to consider the strategies and rules that made up the fabric of his life, and figure out how many of those he could refashion to support Sam, too.   
  
~*~   
  
The next morning, after breakfast, Dean paid for another day at the hotel—clerk probably thought he was some kinda druggie with the dark circles under his eyes—and took Sam out shopping. Luckily, there was a fairly small cell phone store in a nearby strip mall, and Sam didn’t seem particularly stressed out while Dean handled the salespeople and paid in cash. Next up was an office supply store—bigger, but when Dean took Sam’s hand and asked if he felt up to coming inside, Sam nodded. Dean got what he needed, and they headed back to the hotel. The table was small, but Dean gestured for Sam to take one of the rickety chairs, dropped the bags to the side, and sat down across from him. On the way, he grabbed his journal from his duffel—he’d started his own when he started doing solo hunts—and ripped out a couple blank pages, one of which he slid across the table.   
  
“Okay, Sam. This is something I should have done ages ago, but better late than never.”   
  
Sam tensed slightly, his eyes wide and fixed on Dean, but there was less blind terror there than there used to be. Dean kept track of small miracles.   
  
“If things ever go south and we get separated, this is what we’re going to do.”   
  
It took a heck of a lot longer than he’d expected to lay it all out. The emergency drills and panic plans that had been the foundation of his childhood were just the beginning. Dean had codewords for varying levels of emergency situations and eighteen running aliases that either rented PO boxes and safehouse locations across the country or were authorized with access to his various credit cards. He had tricks for getting fake credit cards, staying under the law enforcement radar, forging signatures, patterns for which town, hotel, and fake name they’d take next if they split up, and the numbers for his actual bank account in Boulder, the one where the ASC deposited his monthly stipend. Other than the bank account that he’d only opened when he turned eighteen, he’d never had to think about these, and certainly never said them in one go. He didn’t have to  _think_ about them, no more than he thought about those other details that were as much a part of his daily life as sliding knives into his boots every morning and doing an ammo check every night.   
  
Dean was nervous. Not as nervous as Sam, of course, but he still didn’t have any idea what Sam’s reaction would be. These plans required a lot of him. He couldn’t just wait for Dean’s directions, and it wouldn’t always be crystal-clear which course he should take. But, fuck, it had to be better than nothing, right?   
  
Sam listened as he always did, relaxing perceptibly while keeping his eyes fixed on Dean, hand flying over his paper making tiny, copious notes in the neatest handwriting Dean had ever seen. He had questions sometimes, stuttered occasionally, asked in his quiet-but-not-terrified voice if he could get the map from the Impala when Dean was in the middle of listing safehouses, and generally absorbed the information like taking notes was a direct line into his long-term memory. He didn’t seem wildly relieved at the end, but Dean thought—well, he thought he saw Sam’s shoulders loosen, his hands rest with more determination than fear on the table, like this could be the start of a new, better stage.   
  
Dean could swear up and down until he was blue in the face that he’d always be there for Sam, but the fact was that Sam was too goddamn smart to believe that. He knew a situation could always go FUBAR—or maybe just that Dean would always screw up eventually—and that when that happened, a man damn well better have a plan.   
  
And now Sam had everything Dean did. He had safety nets and contact information for all the other hunters Dean trusted—that was a pretty fucking short list, but it should still help—and a brand new cell phone with Dean’s and Bobby’s numbers in the contact list. He had everything Dean could give him.   
  
It could have felt like giving Sam the power to leave him, but instead it was as comfortable and  _good_ as handing Sam a bag of M&Ms in Freak Camp and sneaking his hand into the bag after Sam’s, or splitting a sandwich. What was Dean’s was Sam’s, and every time Sam accepted what he had to offer, Dean felt that much closer to having more between them than the memory of FREACS and fear.   
  
~   
  
Sam hadn’t known what to expect when Dean sat him down. The stores had been fine—thankfully empty, so he hadn’t really had to be brave to walk through them, and Dean had held his hand besides—but when Dean sat down across from him looking so very serious, he’d felt his stomach drop.   
  
He knew it had to have something to do with telling Dean about his nightmare. It was the only thing that had changed, and Dean had looked so broken after—arms wrapped around him, his eyes dark in a way that Sam knew now not to associate with imminent pain—and Sam thought that no matter what Dean had said, he should have kept his fucking monster mouth shut because something had changed and change was so rarely good.   
  
And then, in his most serious voice, Dean told Sam the secrets of being a Winchester.   
  
After about five minutes, Sam knew that Dean wasn’t making this up or designing this just for Sam. There were too many details, and they came too easily to Dean for it to be invented. Which meant that each of these steps, each of these words, locations and processes was something he had used. Dean was laying out his life, and Sam could barely believe it, even as every word convinced him of the truth of it.   
  
He gave Sam stratagems for keeping safe and free from anyone unlucky enough to try to catch Dean Winchester. There must have been a dozen of them, relayed in precise, clear details, but then Dean helped him see how each trick could be adapted for Sam, to keep him just as safe. And gradually, as Dean recounted the steps, the possibilities and the variations, Sam realized that Dean wasn’t just giving him information and rules, like for a test. He was telling Sam that he would always find him, and, more breathtakingly, giving Sam the abilities and the knowledge to look for Dean as well.   
  
So Sam listened, listened for all he was worth, with almost more concentration than he had given to the Director’s instructions during a session, because this wasn’t just a question of pain or survival, this was from Dean, a gift of trust and faith and Sam _could not_  fail that. He would never let himself.   
  
He wrote everything down as a matter of course, glancing at the notes Dean was making—messy and hard to read upside-down, but Sam had had to absorb more illegible documents faster in the past—but he knew that it wouldn’t take him more than a couple hours to commit the information to memory.   
  
Applying it would be another matter. Most of these steps required Sam to walk alone into stores without having a panic attack. He would have to be able to look reals in the eye, talk like he belonged there, and Dean had even mentioned the prospect of carrying a weapon of some sort. Sam hoped it wouldn’t come to that ( _“A freak doesn’t require a weapon to be dangerous, but the very possession of one indicates a willingness to resist which must be burned out at the root. Do you understand, 88UI?_ ”), but he supposed he would be willing to fight to make his way back to Dean. And if Dean gave him a weapon, that might indicate that he was willing to let Sam end himself rather than be taken back to Freak Camp, if there were no other options. Though Sam was beginning to believe that there would, generally, be other options. Just the fact that Dean was telling him all of this showed Sam that whether or not he could actually remember and perform every aspect of these plans, Dean  _would_ track him down.   
  
Even with all these reassurances, it was hard to accept the phone.   
  
“D-Dean,” Sam said, running his fingers slowly over the small device. “I d-don’t—”   
  
He didn’t need it. Just knowing all of Dean’s numbers was enough, having access to the hotel phones, and Dean showing him how payphones worked—”There aren’t that many anymore, but we’ll try one out next time we see one”—would be enough. Why would a monster need to be able to contact others? Didn’t that imply that he would be seeking out other monsters— _never, never, never_ —to hurt humans, to do bad things? And it was yet another unnecessary thing Dean had bought for Sam, a stupid monster, when he had already given Sam  _so much_ , when most of his emergency plans didn’t require phone calls anyway.   
  
But before he could even get the words clear in his own mind, Dean reached over and closed Sam’s fingers around the phone. “Sam, don’t. It’s a gift. I want you to have it. Here, I even kept the manual, maybe you can teach me how to change the damn screensaver.”   
  
Sam took the manual and made himself breathe. Dean thought he should have this. Dean thought he could do it. So he would. He had to. He  _wanted_ to. “Okay.”   
  
It helped that every time he let Dean treat him like a real person, truly capable of doing what Dean asked, the dark smudges around Dean’s eyes faded.   
  
Standing for the photo had been hard, too. He kept thinking how he didn’t look like a real—too thin, too pale, too _freak_ —and the photo was just going to give it away and all Dean’s hard work was going to be for nothing because you could take the monster out of FREACS but that would never change what he really was. It was a huge relief when Dean said they had enough and put down the camera and Sam could push all those thoughts from his mind.   
  
He’d watched Dean get the ID ready, of course. Dean had put it together on the hotel table, and Sam had glanced over every once in a while as he brushed up on the notes—he was still getting the street address for the Nebraska safehouse mixed up with the Florida one, even though he’d gone over the notes twice before re-copying them from memory—but then it disappeared, and they drove on, swinging out of North Carolina. Dean didn’t say anything more about it, so Sam thought he’d given up on the idea after realizing how pointless it was to try to pass Sam off as a real. He tried not to think about it, or feel anything like disappointment.   
  
Dean took him to one of his nearby PO boxes to show him how they worked. They stopped that night in a small motel—one that Dean had said had  _character_ —just over the Georgia border, and Sam stretched out on the bed, lost in the middle of  _Watership Down_ , until he heard Dean clear his throat.   
  
“Got something for you, Sammy.”   
  
Sam sat up, eyes falling on what Dean held out halfway between them, from where he was sitting on the other bed. It was a wallet, Sam recognized, similar to Dean’s, but shinier and creaseless.   
  
He knew that Dean would never pass him anything that might hurt him without warning him first, but he still reached for the billfold with a thrill of inexplicable apprehension.   
  
“We still got a few months before Christmas, and we’re only halfway to your next birthday,” Dean said, in a tone Sam recognized as when Dean tried to be cheerful even when he didn’t feel that way. “But this can count for one of the ones I missed. Got a lot of catching up to do.”   
  
Sam heard the words, but he didn’t quite  _hear_ them, because the wallet was in his hands now, and the weight told him it wasn’t empty. He couldn’t hold this, let alone open it, this unmistakable mark of a real with power. It didn’t belong anywhere near him.   
  
“Go on, Sam, open it,” Dean said in a rush, without even the pretense of patience, and Sam did as he was told.   
  
Three cards were tucked into the pockets, and Sam’s hands were remarkably steady until he pulled the top one out.   
  
It was a driver’s license from the state of Colorado, the same design as Dean’s. But the name in bold capital said  _Sam Winchester_ , eighteen, from Boulder, CO. Brown hair, hazel eyes, 5’10” tall, 120 pounds.   
  
Sam felt like he couldn’t get his lungs to expand. It was like the library card all over again, but this was so much more. This was his name and Dean’s, his picture staring at him with dark sad eyes, and his description laid over glinting, real-looking holographs, with no place left for 88UI6703.   
  
“Thank you,” he said. This once, he let himself not look at Dean. Just this once. Because if he raised his head, Dean might see how watery his eyes were and think that he was sad, and that was so far from Sam’s emotions that he couldn’t let Dean think that for a moment. It was all he could do to keep his shaking hand from dropping the small, precious card that fit so easily in his palm.   
  
Dean reached over, and as he had with the phone, curled Sam’s fingers over the card. “Anytime, Sam.” He sounded happy again, with the easy confidence Sam knew so well. “Check out the other ones.”   
  
The second was a credit card for James Plant, but the second, a debit card for a Boulder bank, bore  _Sam Winchester_  at the bottom too, in raised letters he could trace.   
  
“Sometimes the credit cards fuck up, it happens,” Dean said. “But the debit card is legit, goes right to my ASC direct deposit account, so if you ever need some quick cash, it’ll work at any ATM. We’ll try one of those out sometime soon so you can get the hang of punching in the PIN and stuff. It ain’t a bottomless account, but it should put at least a few hundred bucks in your pocket if you need it.” He sounded smug now. “Go on, keep looking, there’s more in there.”   
  
Sam was already reeling, a thousand thoughts and feelings clashing within him, and he didn’t know where to start with which ones he should utter; but he had been given another direction, so his fingers moved on, sliding under the pockets, feeling the soft, supple material. Then two crisp green notes peeked out, and Sam’s stomach pitched forward again.   
  
This was too much. Wonder, disbelief, and consternation had warred within him, but the battle was abruptly over, one side sweeping over the others. Sam couldn’t drop Dean’s impossible, priceless gift to the floor, but he let it fall to his knees. He clasped his hands together over it in an effort to get them to stop shaking, but he had no such luck with his voice. “I can’t.”   
  
Crossing the space between them, Dean sat close beside him and rubbed his back with the heel of his hand until Sam found it easier to breathe and could bring the room back to proper focus. Then Dean said, quietly, “Why can’t you, Sam?”   
  
Sam gestured once with his hands, up and helpless, before clenching them together again. “I can’t, I can’t carry all that. I can’t p-pass well enough, they’ll c- _catch_ me eventually, and they’ll be so angry, Dean, so angry that I was carrying — that I pretended to be —”   
  
“Sam.” Dean covered his hands with one of his own, and Sam let himself drop his forehead to rest atop it, over his knees, fighting for deeper breaths. “No one’s going to catch you, Sam. Gimme a little credit, okay — I’ve made IDs for just about every government agency there is, and no one’s ever called me a fraud.”   
  
“Because you’re  _Dean_ ,” Sam said, unable to stop himself.   
  
Dean huffed a laugh. “Well, I got some practice. But it’s good, okay? This’ll work. I told you that every fake credit card eventually goes belly up, but if that happens, or if the IDs fuck up — that’s my fault, Sam, not yours.”   
  
“No!” Sam pushed himself up on his elbows, shocked.   
  
“ _Yes_ ,” Dean said, smiling, though his tone was still gentle. “This is my arts and crafts, dude, I get credit for however it turns out. I’m just asking you to trust me. I wouldn’t give you anything that might get you in trouble, right? Nothing but the best.”   
  
Sam took a couple more slow breaths, then sat up and forced himself to pick up the wallet again and take out the ID. It was good, very good. He had to believe Dean that the marks of authenticity would count more than all the signs of  _freak_ shining from his face.   
  
They sat there quietly for a few more moments, until Sam said, “I don’t think I weigh 120 pounds.”   
  
Dean’s laugh shook through his arms, warming Sam, and he felt a smile tug at his own mouth. “Yeah, well, you’re not eighteen quite yet, either. Think of it as a good first goal.”   
  
Sam nodded, slid the ID back inside, and folded the wallet back together, clasping it between his hands. “Thank you,” he said again, and this time looked into Dean’s face.   
  
Something flickered in Dean’s eyes, and he bent his head forward, pressing his mouth to Sam’s hairline, as his hand squeezed Sam’s shoulder tight. Sam closed his eyes, breathing in Dean’s scent deep.   
  
Just when Sam thought he had gotten any kind of grasp of what Dean wanted from him, just when it started to seem feasible, Dean reset his expectations to impossibly enormous. Quite often that scared Sam, though never with the hopeless dread he had felt in camp. He was finally coming to believe that every time he failed, Dean would catch him and never let him hit the floor. He could count on that, and Dean’s faith in him, over his certainty of his own shortcomings.   
  
This wallet was scary in new, indefinite ways, because it seemed to suggest he could survive without Dean; it opened the possibility that Dean might leave him someday. Sam tried not to think about that, focusing on the plan rather than the necessity for the plan.   
  
The power the wallet offered was alien as well because this was something that didn’t depend on Dean’s kindness, or whether or not Sam was good with his mouth. Sam didn’t know if he could accept or trust in it yet, but just the new possibility open to him was enough of a revelation.   
  
~*~   
  
Dean was so proud of how Sam had taken on the challenge of their emergency plans. He hadn’t even blinked at how much crap there was to remember—Dean had been a little impressed himself that so much information had come out of his head—and other than going through his notes every night and asking Dean questions every once in a while, he didn’t mention it. But Sam walked with more confidence and made a bigger effort to actually look at people when they went into a restaurant or convenience store, and Dean felt like he’d been carry a forty-pound pack on his back long enough to forget it was there, and now it was  _gone_ —or at least lighter. Dean saw Sam touching the wallet frequently, as though just the feel of the leather under his fingertips was another layer of reassurance that Dean couldn’t always give.   
  
It helped Dean, too. Take this diner, for example. He wasn’t getting a single weird look from the other customers, like they thought he was beating Sam or something. Yeah, Sam didn’t look like a one hundred percent healthy individual—maybe someone recovering from a bad bout of the flu—but at least he didn’t look recently  _beaten_ .   
  
Of course, even when no one was staring at them, there were always things about being in public that Dean could do without. That day, a mom sat with her kid right across from them, which always set Dean´s teeth on edge for Sam’s sake. Kids—and how their parents treated them—could set Sam off faster than anything else. At least today, the kid was talking a mile a minute and the mom wasn’t being a nasty bitch. The big sticker on the boy’s chest—proclaiming "I’m smiling because I saw the dentist today!"—was explanation enough for why he wasn’t in school, making Sam probably the second youngest person in the place.   
  
Dean never caught the woman looking at them, but the boy kept sneaking glances at Sam when he thought neither of them were looking. It made Dean twitch every time, but the kid couldn’t have been less threatening—he seemed more curious than anything—and Dean couldn’t exactly give the Death Glare to a six-year-old.   
  
When the pair got up to leave, he breathed a silent and hopefully unnoticed sigh of relief—until they reached the door and the boy said in a whisper that could be heard halfway across a room, "Mommy, why was that man at the window so sad?"   
  
Dean wouldn’t have cared, except Sam recoiled and dropped the french fry between his fingers, keeping his eyes fixed on his plate, and he didn’t reach for the remaining half of his sandwich.   
  
The woman shot them an embarrassed glance and gently pushed her son toward the door. "Come on, sweetie, I think we’ve dodged school long enough."   
  
Dean crammed his last couple french fries in his mouth and ordered a to-go box for Sam’s sandwich. Sam still hadn’t so much as glanced toward the door, but his right hand had slid into in the pocket with his wallet, and his breathing was unnaturally slow and even.   
  
In the Impala, Sam settled into the passenger seat and curled toward the window, back to Dean, eyes closed. Stifling what he wanted to say—which started with  _Goddamn fuck_  and went downhill from there—Dean tossed the leftovers in the back with a little more force than he had planned and shoved the keys in the ignition.   
  
To his surprise, Sam spoke first, in a flat, hollow voice. “I’ll n-never be...able to pass for n-normal, will I? They all know. The ID, the p-plans, they w-wont work if—Dean, will they work? _C-can_  they...p-please tell me....if it w-won’t w-work because I c-can’t p-pass, p-please tell me now. ”   
  
Dean’s mouth was dry. He wished this was just another symptom of Sam’s fear, that he could say some general reassuring words and make everything all right, or at least better. But he couldn’t, because this wasn’t just the same old fear. With the advent of their  _plans_ , which looked so good and felt so right, he couldn’t just dismiss this. It was key, and Sam was smart enough to know that, and Dean wasn’t stupid enough to brush him aside.   
  
But he didn’t know if he had an answer that would keep Sam hopeful and striving, gaining confidence, even though that was what he desperately wanted. It was his nightmare, after all, that Sam would get  _worse_ instead of better, that Dean would wake up one day left with the terrified, disturbingly obedient stranger that Sam had been at the beginning, and not the hesitantly smiling, responsive, and mind-blowingly brave Sam that he had today.   
  
“Fuck normal,” Dean said. Maybe a little too loud, because Sam’s shoulders twitched. “And fuck the horse it came in on. I’m not normal, Sam, and no one else is, and just because people are…noticing you, it doesn’t mean...it doesn’t mean it can’t work, okay? Trust me, there are some kooky sonsofbitches out there who make you look like one of the Brady Bunch, and people have to deal with them too. People are allowed to be different, it’s not a fucking crime.”   
  
Sam turned his head, hunching tighter to the window. “But they’re  _noticing_ . And I’ll...you’ll...I don’t want to get you into trouble. It’s not w-worth it, I’m not—”   
  
Dean jerked the key out of the ignition and grabbed Sam’s shoulder like it was his lifeline, because hearing that hopelessness in Sam’s mouth again made him feel like he was drowning and the sea was closing over his fucking head. “Sam!”   
  
Sam jerked up straight and stared, eyes wide, face as frozen as during any panic attack.   
  
Dean tried not to be rough, not to shake him, but his voice still came out in a half-growl. “You’re worth everything. Don’t worry about me. Don’t fucking worry about me when you have so much....when it’s so...I can fucking take care of myself, I just need you to keep fucking fighting, even if that means running like hell and going into restaurants and  _fuck_ , Sam, can you do that?”  _Because if you can’t, please, fuck, tell me now._   
  
Sam had to swallow, twice, before he could speak. “Even if they know?”   
  
“I’ve never given much of a damn what people think before, I don’t know why I’d start now.”   
  
“Even if it doesn’t always...even if sometimes I can’t...”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
Sam took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he lifted a hand and locked it around Dean’s sleeve. He nodded with painful resolution. “Y-yes, Dean. I won’t...yes.”   
  
Dean exhaled too, feeling the same release, and he laid his free hand on top of Sam’s. “Okay. We can work with that.”   
  
~*~   
  
Neither of them felt much like going out when they got to the next hotel that night. As far as Dean was concerned, the highway had passed in one long grey black blur, and Sam hadn’t done anything but read the cell phone manual for the fourth time. Or maybe he’d just held it in his hands to have something to pretend to be doing.   
  
Conveniently, the hotel had one of those little ring binders with restaurant options. There was even a nice little subsection for delivery.   
  
Dean ran his hand down the line, decided that he didn’t want to fucking eat vegan curry, and turned around. Sam had already laid his bag on the second bed and sat next to Dean, watching the black TV as though it was already showing the soothing clouds. “Pizza or Chinese?”   
  
Sam’s head turned. “What?”   
  
Dean hefted the phone. “Delivery. Pizza or Chinese.”   
  
Sam tipped his head back, studied the ceiling while he thought. “Pizza.”   
  
Dean punched in the numbers and then stopped. Savored.   
  
A month ago, Sam would have stared at him, panicked at the very idea of choosing. Maybe even last week, he would have asked so many more questions, price and preference and convenience. But tonight he thought and chose, and these were the small gifts. These were the moments Dean had to hold onto when even the good things that he could do with his life didn’t seem like enough.   
  
And because he paused, an idea came to him.   
  
He stretched the phone toward Sam. "You wanna make the call?'   
  
Dean knew Sam didn't, even before Sam froze, eyes fixing on the phone like it might bite him. He could tell that just the idea of talking to a stranger that he couldn't see, couldn't even physically take the measure of, brought Sam instantly to the verge of his second panic attack of the day. Dean’s instinct to protect Sam from these threats had been honed as strong as his awareness of flickering lights, of someone shifting to touch a weapon under their jacket, but it wasn't doing Sam any favors to keep him in a bubble forever.   
  
And Sam didn’t want him to. So this was another step. A baby one, to anyone else, but for them...it made fucking Godzilla look like a garden snake.   
  
Sam took the phone, cleared the partially inputted number, and turned it over and over in his hands. His eyes flickered to the pizza ad's number. "What's the—the a-a-address here?" Dean slid over a notepad with the hotel info printed on top. Sam took a deep, slow breath, like he was going underwater and wasn’t sure when he’d get another shot at air. “Yeah, I w-want to.”   
  
Dean felt such a rush of pride and triumph that he thought he was going to fist-pump right there. Or kiss Sam until he really did gasp for air. "Okay, let's go over this. I'm a pimply sixteen-year-old, working for minimum wage at Papa John's and bored out of my skull. The only thing I'm thinking about is whether or not I can catch a break with Sally from algebra class and she’ll maybe, like, you know, want to watch a Star Wars marathon with me tonight after work."   
  
Sam was almost smiling, his shoulders looking a little less like they’d break if Dean touched them wrong. Pleased, Dean went slack-jawed and mimed answering the phone. "Uh, hi, this is Papa John's, my name's Lance, may I take your order?”   
  
Catching on, Sam raised Dean's cell to his ear. "Can I get two large pizzas—one cheese, one half vegetarian and half meat?"   
  
"Uh, I guess...do you want any, like, soda or girly little cinnamon sticks with that? They've only, like, been sitting on the counter since yesterday, dude."   
  
"Just a two liter of coke."   
  
"Okay...your total will be like, fifty bucks, or something like that, and it'll be there in an hour or maybe two because we're in the armpit of Tennessee and I think I’m gonna smoke a joint before delivering your pizza. Bye, dude."   
  
Sam was grinning at him, bright and unreserved and beautiful, and it was so fucking good to see his hands steady again.   
  
Dean spread his hands. "See? Piece of cake.”   
  
"Right." Sam dipped his head and punched in the number. His shoulders became two brittle lines of tension, and his left hand started to lock around his calf, but Dean slipped his hand in between before he could, and Sam held on tight to him instead. His eyes shut tight as Dean heard the muffled sound of Papa John’s picking up.   
  
"Uh, hi, yes—I-I'd like to place an order. For pick-up—no, delivery, I mean delivery." Sam was rocking slightly in agitation, and Dean tightened his grip on Sam’s hand, trying not to hate himself as Sam stammered the rest of the way through the order. He enunciated the name of their hotel and room number with almost painful clarity, and Dean winced and wanted to go and punch the bastard when the employee hung up halfway through Sam's goodbye.   
  
Sam exhaled without opening his eyes, slowly releasing the phone until it dropped onto the bed. Then he pitched forward, face-first into the pillows.   
  
"Sam." Dean rolled onto his side, rubbing his hand slowly over Sam's spine, checking to make sure he was still breathing, because, fuck, you never knew. "Hey, man, you did it. You got through it, that was good. You’re a fucking badass, that weasely little bastard’s gonna bring us pizza and he didn’t think a damn thing."   
  
"I hate this." Sam's voice was heavily muffled in the pillows, but Dean stopped his hand. Sam turned his head, like he thought Dean hadn’t heard him the first time. "I hate how hard this is. It's stupid, I know it shouldn't be hard.”   
  
“Says who? No one’s making rules about what’s supposed to be hard and easy for you. And every time, it’s gonna be easier.” Dean kept rubbing Sam’s back, thinking. “Hey, Sam, you wanna pay the guy when he comes?”   
  
Sam opened his eyes wide, and stared at him. And then he tipped his head back and made a noise that was somewhere between a choke, a laugh, and getting sucker-punched in the abdomen. “No.” He shook his head, smiling and hyperventilating at the same time. “No.”   
  
And Dean laughed a little with him, because that sure as hell hadn’t been a No question, and Sam knew that just the same.


	15. Chapter 15

Once he decided to say it, it took Sam several days of mental rehearsal before he was able to. Each day, hours beforehand, he thought,  _tonight I'll tell him_ , but every opportunity slipped past. It was just so  _hard_ to force out the words, even if he believed intellectually that Dean wouldn't backhand him for his presumption.  
  
When he finally found the courage to say it, he stumbled over the words and probably twisted his hands more than Dean would like, but he made sure his eyes stayed on Dean's face the whole time, which he hoped would count more.  
  
He hadn't known how Dean would react, but for all he'd tried to tell himself nothing really bad would happen, he held his breath after, watching Dean's face flicker through different emotions too quickly to decipher them all, though he caught surprise, puzzlement...but the emotion Dean's face finally settled on was too close to that horrible sad, tired look to ease the mounting pressure of anxiety in Sam's chest. He'd promised himself he wouldn't backpedal and apologize—even if he'd said the wrong thing, Dean wouldn't like that—but he had to bite his tongue now to catch the words before they could come out.  
  
"You want me to go out?" Dean repeated.  
  
Sam nodded, keeping his eyes on Dean's, ignoring the bruising crush of his right hand over his left. "I—I think—it would be good. You should. You like going out to b-bars, and I like...reading and staying in. I'll be okay here, I know it's safe in this hotel and no one's going to c-come in. So we'll both d-do what we want, and it'll be good, Dean."  
  
Dean didn't look convinced or happier. He fidgeted with his paper napkin from the Chinese delivery, tearing apart shreds and dropping them into his empty carton. Sam forced himself to take slow, measured breaths.  
  
"You want me to go out at night?" Dean said at last, as though he still wasn't sure he'd heard right. "You feel okay about that?"  
  
Sam nodded quickly. "Yeah, I—I want you to. I mean, I like it...when you're with me, but not when I know you're not—doing anything you like." Sam was afraid to specifically mention the TV. Dean had liked other channels back in Boulder, but now all they watched were programs about weather or nature, things that rarely made Sam flinch. He felt horribly guilty about that, not being able to block out the television when he had ignored so much in his life, or to just  _control_ such small physical reactions when Dean did so much for him. He wished Dean hadn't noticed, but Dean seemed to have developed an eye as sharp ( _as the Director_ ) as any guard for whatever made Sam twitch. Though, so very unlike the guards, Dean went out of his way to remove those things. If only Sam could have told him he didn’t have to worry about protecting him, that he was sure he'd get control over his tics with practice—but just thinking about the whole situation was enough to drive Sam to the edge of a panic attack on his bad days, so he tried to...not think about it. Sam wished he could have told Dean that taking away yet another source of Dean's comfort made him feel far, far worse than when reals were screaming on the television.  
  
That was why he really, really hoped this would work. Dean had gone out in Boulder when he had been most upset, and while he hadn't really seemed happier when he came back, going out had always  _changed_ Dean’s mood, relaxing him or focusing him, like getting away from Sam was something he had to do to clear his head. But he hadn't gone out at all since they'd left Boulder, and while Dean seemed better—most days—than he had before, Sam was still very conscious of all the things he took away from Dean just by being with him. He had to convince Dean this was okay, or the guilt would eventually suffocate him.  
  
Dean was still watching him closely, forehead knit. "You know I don't mind staying with you, Sam," he said, and he reached to rest his fingertips lightly over Sam's locked hands.  
  
Sam let out a breath and his shoulders slumped, even as he nodded again. "I know, I...I'm glad.” And he was, desperately. But if he didn’t convince Dean of this tonight, he wasn’t sure when he’d be able to force himself to try again. “But if you stay in every night, I'm not going to enjoy...reading or...anything, because I know you aren't d-doing what you like." He didn't add, _you shouldn't have to be around a monster every moment of the day and night. You deserve better than that, Dean, you_ need  _a break._  
  
Dean wasn't immediately convinced, but Sam was persistent. Sam was brave. He said again and again that it was what he wanted Dean to do. In the end, Dean still looked unsure, conflicted, but he agreed. The second after he did, Sam fought down a completely different kind of panic because it scared him deep down that Dean was _listening_ to a freak and doing what  _Sam_ had said.  
  
But he told himself this couldn't hurt Dean, that Dean always managed fine going out on his own, and this would be better for both of them. He kept the illusion up, smiling and looking at Dean's face and saying yes, yes, he’d be fine, he was going to sit and read and he had his new phone right beside him for any kind of emergency. He'd be fine.  
  
Dean sat beside him on the bed, keys in hand but still irresolute. "I don't have to do this, you know.”  
  
"Dean, I  _want_ you to go out," Sam said, and that was the hardest part, saying that like it was a reason Dean should go, and trusting that Dean would know he didn't mean forever.  
  
Dean just watched him for a second. And then he smiled his tight _I’m trying too_ smile, brushed Sam’s hand, and got up. “Okay, Sam. I’m going. I’ll be back.”  
  
The moment the door finally clicked shut after him, Sam's shoulders dropped and he sagged back against the headboard like he'd just been released from standing at attention at a five-hour assembly. He blew out his breath slowly, closed his eyes, and only re-opened them when he felt his heart rate slow.  
  
He made a circuit of the room once, checking the door and window locks, the salt lines, adjusting the curtain so not a sliver of the room was visible from outside. He straightened the towels and toiletries in the bathroom for no particular reason, then returned to the bed and placed his book in his lap.  
  
Dean returned after barely an hour that first night, and Sam could hardly tell he'd been drinking. He dropped his keys and wallet on the table, shrugged off his jacket, and crawled up on the bed right next to him. "Hey Sammy."  
  
"Hi Dean." Sam sat with his hands resting around the book, like he'd been sitting there easily with nothing else on his mind. "Did you have a good time?"  
  
"Oh, I had a blast." Dean set his chin on Sam's shoulder, like he was checking out what Sam was reading. There was something funny in the words, and Sam wasn't completely sure he believed him. While he hesitated over whether to ask if anything had happened, if this was really okay, Dean whispered, "I'm real proud of you, y'know."  
  
Sam smiled, feeling it grow on his face to match the warmth inside him. He wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve Dean’s approval laid out like that, but he'd made Dean happy, and that was the best thing that could happen. It made sixty-seven minutes of total focus on blanking out, letting nothing cross his mind but the words on the pages, completely worth it.  
  
Dean didn't go out every night after that, but he did sometimes. He usually stayed out at least until midnight, but he was always back before one a.m. Sam kept a precise routine during those hours: double check the locks and curtains, change into the t-shirt and boxers he slept in, clean and tidy anything they had unpacked, plug his cell phone in to charge (he always left it on the bedside table, an inch from the edge, so he could reach it quickly if Dean called, but it wasn’t likely to fall), then (and only then, when his heartbeat was a little slower) he would open whatever book he had on hand.  
  
After the first couple times Dean went out, he added a new step: reaching for the TV remote with the same caution he used when the Director had ordered him to assemble his own restraints.  
  
He didn’t want to watch TV—though he would train himself to like it, for Dean's sake—but he had to have a distraction. Silence did nothing to stop the whispers growing and growing louder in his head. He had managed to block them out the first night, mostly due to his overriding anxiety about whether this would even work, if Dean would enjoy himself and appreciate what Sam was trying to do—but after that, he couldn't escape. The fears never failed to emerge the moment Dean closed the door behind him: that Dean, once away, would realize how much happier and better off he was without Sam, that he wouldn't come back. That he  _shouldn't_ drag himself back to the burden of Sam.  
  
With nothing to distract himself (like on long Wednesday afternoons waiting for the inevitable session with the Director), Sam couldn't stop envisioning the night vanishing without Dean coming back, wondering what he would do in the morning, through the next day, if he was still alone. Surely Dean had offered one last kindness by leaving the duffel with his weapons behind, so that Sam could finish himself quietly, quickly, rather than waiting for the ASC to pick him up. With the TV on, Sam didn't have to sit in silence and wonder how many hours (twelve? Eighteen? Forty-eight?) he was supposed to wait before picking up the knife, and wishing Dean had just told him so he'd know. He tried not to think of how the Director wouldn't have missed that detail.  
  
Every night Dean went out, he waited for the sound of footsteps, the snick of the key sliding in—without fail making him freeze, panic-adrenaline hitting him like a bucket of ice water, but it was always Dean, alone, on the other side—and then the equally strong tidal wave of relief followed. Dean was back; he'd come back to Sam, as he promised, and now Sam would, without question, be okay. Though sometimes he curled up under the covers after the clock clicked over to midnight, Sam could never do anything but lie still and wait. He couldn't imagine trying to sleep alone in the motel—he'd already gotten too used to Dean's warmth, breath, and skin beside him, knowing he'd just have to reach out to feel him there.  
  
Sam had been a little afraid at first that the alcohol would loosen Dean to the point where he might start treating Sam like he deserved, or forget the PG Rule and just take him, but that never happened. So he didn't mind the nights Dean moved less than gracefully, sliding his keys off the edge of the table or missing the chair with his jacket before dropping onto the bed and tugging Sam close. He just closed his eyes and let himself, finally, relax and sleep. And if some nights Sam could almost taste the whiskey on Dean’s breath, well, that was part of Dean, too.  
  
Besides learning how to breathe through the hours without Dean and gradually building up his tolerance for TV shows featuring reals, Sam found an unexpected benefit in his evenings alone. One night he realized that the alarm clock on the nightstand also had a radio—he’d been reading a book about the development of radio and television, and a couple hours after Dean left, it clicked that that was what the extra buttons on the alarm clock probably did. Sam never would have just  _fiddled_ with something meant for reals, except Dean had been encouraging him to experiment with things like soda machines, ATMs, and using the microwave without supervision if there was one in the room, so he figured that the clock radio was a fair bet as well.  
  
Sam switched on the radio, keeping the volume very low as he scanned stations for any that played music like Dean’s. Often the commercials and DJs’ voices were loud and abrasive, making him wince as they joked about things he didn’t understand and some he only wished he didn’t, but he could always move to another station or turn it off entirely—a marvelous power he was still absorbing.  
  
One night, however, as he scanned through stations in search of the elusive Led Zeppelin, he found something totally unlike anything he had heard before.  
  
The DJ’s voice was what first caught his ear; unlike nearly all the others, talking about concert giveaways and titties late at night, this one was smooth and cultivated, the lilting rhythm of the words designed to soothe rather than rankle. He was so taken by the voice alone, he didn’t really register what it was saying ( _gifted conductor, first movement, rare combination of styles for a duet_ ) until the words ended, and he thought that maybe he should have been listening, if only to know about what the voice had been advertising, informing, or discussing.  
  
And then the music began.  
  
Sam forgot everything: where he was, his preoccupation with how he was still giving himself away when he looked a real in the eye, his worry that he’d never be able to meet Dean’s expectations. He even forgot that Dean wasn’t there. Nothing existed but the music rising from the simple black clock radio: a clamorous burst of sound that commanded his attention. The notes moved faster and more gracefully than he could fathom, carrying him along more rapidly than he could grasp what was happening, what he was hearing. The melody was everything at once: smooth and rushed, elegant and airy until it crashed down in sudden tumult, quieting and then growing louder again. It rolled and danced over unseen terrain, until it reunited in the same exuberant clamor and, just as suddenly and inexplicably as it began, it was gone.  
  
He had never known anything like that existed.  
  
The cool, melodious voice returned, as Sam lay dazed, not registering yet what had just happened or wondering if he would ever experience it again. He tried to breathe, tried to savor the moment and hold onto those crashing _good_ sensations he’d felt from a few minutes of gorgeous, indescribable notes. He clung to them, and almost felt tears rising and his throat clench when he realized they were slipping away. And then a second piece began.  
  
For the first time, Sam wasn’t conscious of the minutes ticking by until Dean’s return. The click of the door opening took him off-guard, breaking the trance of the music and sending him scrabbling hastily up from where he’d been lying on his stomach. Instinctively, he slapped the radio off before looking to Dean.  
  
Dean stood by the door, keys and key card in hand, watching Sam with an odd expression. A look like that on anyone else’s face would have sent sliding Sam off the bed to his knees, and even now with Dean, after they’d come so far, it would have normally flipped Sam’s stomach and set anxiety sprinting over his skin. But Sam still had vibrations through his blood, tingling in his ears and head, from the beautiful music that no words could possibly contain, whose source or creator he could not fathom. He would have had no trouble believing someone who told him that that station had been beamed in from another planet or dimension. And perhaps he should have been more worried, looking at Dean, but he couldn’t feel it. His pulse was ringing with crescendos.  
  
“Hey,” Dean said, and dropped his keys and jacket onto the table. Sam relaxed back down onto the bed as Dean crossed the room and sat down next to Sam. His hand found Sam’s hair, threading through it gently, and Sam closed his eyes. This was one of his favorite ways that Dean touched him, and it made worry even more impossible. Dean had been drinking—Sam could tell from the fluid slight-sloppiness of his movements, the way his eyes tracked the room (slightly too bright and a half-beat slower than usual), and he could smell a little on his breath—but not too much, just enough to ease his movements from the tension Sam saw in him from dealing with a monster so much of the time. Yes, it was good for Dean to take breaks from him.  
  
“Found something you liked on the radio?” Dean asked eventually.  
  
“Yeah,” Sam said. He didn’t worry as much anymore about confessing such things to Dean, who had never taken (or threatened to take) away anything that Sam had liked. Dean had only driven away the things that could hurt him. It seemed that every day spent with Dean, every day of safety and kindness, left Sam with such a particular glow of peace, and stronger now that Dean was in the same room with him again, touching his hair with slow, even strokes. “I don’t know what it was.”  
  
“Not sure I can help you out, Sammy. I’m not much of an eighteenth-century, long-haired music buff.”  
  
Sam blinked. For a moment he considered that Dean meant the music had streamed directly through a time loop across three centuries; then he remembered that any kind of music could be recorded and played again, just as Dean’s music was. “Eighteenth century,” he repeatedly slowly; Dean had already said this wasn’t one of his areas of knowledge, so Sam wouldn’t push him, but— “Do you know what it’s called?”  
  
“Uh...classical?”  
  
Sam blinked up at him. “Like your music?”  
  
“No no no, that’s classic  _rock_ . Classical’s, like, Beethoven, Mozart, Chekhov, all those guys in the powdered wigs and sticks up their—” Dean caught himself, and his thumb resumed even stroking over Sam’s hairline. “We could dig them up,” he said instead. “A book about them, I mean. I don’t think any of them are buried—that is, if you  _like_ it, you can learn all about them and then tell me what I’m missing out on.”  
  
Sam felt a smile break over his face, like the dawn, like the arching sound of horns breaking over the heartbeat of the lower instruments, and then—he had never been so brave before, the happy buzz still overriding his usual inhibitions—he pressed his palm to Dean’s hip, against his shirt, right above the waistband of his jeans. Dean’s hand stopped, and Sam’s eyes flickered up.  
  
Dean looked arrested, like that was the last thing he’d expected Sam to do and he didn’t know how to respond. Sam wasn’t sure if he should pull his hand away. He liked feeling Dean’s warm skin through the cotton—he rarely got to touch even this much directly. At night, he usually only held Dean’s shirt, sometimes resting his knuckles against Dean’s chest, touches that were indirect, blunted, leaving at least a shadow of the distance appropriate between a monster and a hunter, a freak and a real. But this touch, too, felt good. Reckless. Safe.  
  
Dean drew his thumb slowly over Sam’s forehead, his eyes fixed on Sam’s, lips red and parted. They looked very soft, and Sam felt a sudden urge to touch them, too, to see if they felt as they looked. But that step, that choice, was far out of his capacity. Maybe someday, with more of this beautiful music to listen to, he could manage it. Or he could at least tell Dean that he wanted this, too, just as much as books and strawberries.  
  
“Sam,” Dean started, an odd husk to his voice that made Sam’s breath catch. For a moment, he felt a hot swoop in his belly, as he thought that Dean was about to bend over, cover Sam’s body with his own and press their mouths together—then Dean’s eyes shut, and he straightened off the bed abruptly, his hand snatched from Sam’s head and Sam’s hands empty and fallen back to the bed, the heat on his palm just a memory.  
  
Dean stumbled toward the bathroom, though Sam thought it was more haste than alcohol. “I gotta piss,” he called without looking back. “Then we’ll catch some Zs and go on a super-duper oldies search tomorrow.”  
  
Dean shut the door before Sam could reply—not that he often tried to reply when Dean was moving away from him that quickly—but Sam couldn’t feel disturbed, nervous, or any of the other emotions he usually felt when Dean pulled away from him. Dean had come back, and he hadn’t told him he couldn’t have this beautiful music. Dean gave him everything, and tomorrow would be much better simply knowing the music existed and he might hear it again.  
  
When Dean left the bathroom, Sam was on the verge of sleep, overlapping melodies sliding through his mind. Dean climbing in behind him and tucking his head over his shoulder was just the last soothing touch needed for sleep.  
  
~*~  
  
 _Sam’s mouth was hot and hungry, seeking Dean’s. His hands moved nonstop, squeezing Dean’s ass, stroking his chest under his shirt, never letting up for a second. He followed Dean into the tight space of the shower, until Dean’s back was wedged against the wall and there was nowhere to go. Then Sam laughed, tilting his head back so Dean could see the gleam of amusement and triumph in his eye.  
  
“Got you,” Sam whispered, and his knee nudged between Dean’s, riding his thigh against the hot ache of Dean’s cock trapped in his dampening jeans. “Can’t tease me now, can you?”  
  
“Sam,” Dean panted, all he could manage. His hands grasped Sam’s shoulders, hauling him closer, groaning into his mouth as he rocked against the hard unrelenting friction of Sam’s thigh.  
  
Then Sam slithered out of his grasp, laughing at Dean’s frustration. “Hang on,” he said, and grabbed Dean’s belt with both hands, leaning in so close their noses could brush, and locked eyes with him. “I want more. I want you.”  
  
In one movement, Sam hauled Dean’s jeans to his ankles, dropping to his own knees simultaneously. Then their clothing was just _ gone _, and Dean had nothing blocking his view of their slick skin, water droplets shining on the pink, flushed skin of Sam’s shoulder and neck. He looked up at Dean with rosy cheeks and parted red lips, eyes bright and unwavering, as he wrapped his fingers around the base of Dean’s cock.  
  
Dean’s body arched, and he groaned, desperately tangling and tugging his fingers through Sam’s wet hair. “C’mon, Sammy, I need your fucking mouth on me—”  
  
Sam’s mouth curved in a wicked smile, then opened wide to swallow him down._  
  
Dean jerked awake, muscles twitching, almost panting and too fucking hot, and it wasn’t just the dream. He’d pulled the heavy comforter over them before falling asleep, and he was also lying half on top of Sam, one leg thrown between his bony thighs. The third thing making his blood feel like it was going to burn out of his chest was his randy, unrepentant dick grinding down on Sam’s hip.  _Again_ .  
  
Biting his lip hard to repress a curse, Dean forced himself to pull away slowly, so he wouldn’t jar Sam. It was too much to hope that Sam hadn’t noticed  _one_ of these nights (third fucking night in a row with Dean’s dick way too interested in Sam), or that they hadn’t added any more scars to his subconscious, like that fucking awful first night it happened—but the least he could was not start Sam awake for  _that_ reason, like he was asking for a goddamn favor. Fuck no. He just had to get to the bathroom, quietly, and fucking  _deal_ while he tried to keep his mind absolutely wiped of everything he had just dreamed.  
  
But as he slowly unpeeled his body from Sam’s and sat up, Sam rolled the rest of the way onto his stomach with his legs sprawled apart with just enough space for Dean’s knees, slipping his hands under his pillow. His eyes remained shut, breath even, and for those reasons Dean knew Sam was not asleep.  
  
Sam never slept flat on his back or stomach, and never in such relaxed, languid posture. He slept curled on his side, hands clenched tight against his own chest, to Dean’s, or pressed between his knees, chin tucked to his chest protectively. Sam  _did not sleep like that_ , and he wasn’t asleep at all. He had felt Dean moving ( _Dean’s eager dick_ ), and rolled onto his stomach like a fucking invitation, spread out for Dean to take because, as far as Sam believed, he belonged to him and why would Dean think twice to take what was his, even if Sam was asleep.  
  
It took all his willpower not to scramble backward off the bed. He moved one limb at a time, just as smooth and careful as he moved stalking giant spiders and creeping into houses, and by the time he got to the bathroom, he had nothing to take care of. And he couldn’t even smash his fist into the wall to vent his feelings because Sam might hear and think Dean wanted to hit  _him_ .  
  
The next night, Dean couldn’t take it. He couldn’t watch Sam getting ready for bed—carefully brushing his teeth, settling comfortably into his boxers and the Metallica t-shirt Dean got at a Goodwill in Denver for seventy-six cents—without knowing what was coming, that the desire, panic, and guilt would just keep fucking getting worse. He couldn’t get into bed with Sam, not with what had happened the last three nights, but he also knew that if he didn’t or if he tried to keep his hands off, Sam would get that look in his eyes, like it was his fault that Dean was a fucked-up pervert, like he thought Dean would blame him, when all Dean wanted was to get into bed beside him and pull him close. And that was the problem.  
  
He stood abruptly, maybe too fast for Sam, but Dean suddenly had to blow off some of this steam before it blew back on Sam, who, out of all the people in the world, deserved it the least. “Hey, Sam, I’m gonna go out.”  
  
Sam snapped up and stared at him. He didn’t look  _terrified_ , but he looked startled, and Dean wished he could stop being such an asshole. Maybe he could try it for an hour, just to see what it would be like. Maybe he could try it just for Sam.  
  
Stepping closer, he rested his hand lightly on Sam’s shoulder. “I’ll be back later. You’ll be okay, yeah?”  
  
Sam smiled the tight little smile that meant he was dealing, but not exactly thrilled. “Yes, Dean. I’ll be fine.”  
  
“Good.” Dean hesitated, but there wasn’t much to say. He had to get away, and he had to do it now, before he pulled Sam’s mouth to his own to see if it could be anything like the dreams.  
  
But he didn’t. Because he wasn’t that much of a bastard yet.   
  
~

  
By this point, Sam could almost ignore the way his heart rate spiked when the door closed behind Dean and he heard the Impala’s engine fire up. He turned on the TV (even though he’d discovered classical music, he still needed to work on accustoming himself to the TV, so he only let himself listen to the radio every other night Dean left), read a new book from the last used book shop, and managed to be so relaxed—zoned out, really—that even though he had been checking the clock about every ten minutes out of habit, he hadn’t registered the time.

  
It hit him in the solar plexus, then, when he glanced up and saw 2:03 a.m. on the screen.  
  
Sam jerked away from the clock radio as though it was a vamp with unmuzzled fangs, and then fought to slow the staccato beat of his heart. Sure, it was later than Dean had ever been out before— _forty-five minutes later,_   _how did you not_ notice _?_ —but two weeks ago, one a.m. had been later than Dean had ever been out, and before that, the time from ten p.m. to midnight had stretched like a chain around his throat. This was just a little longer, and soon Dean would come back. Dean always came back. Sam should read, or actually pay attention to the penguins currently waddling their way toward the dangers of the sea on the Discovery Channel, and try to reclaim the peace, however forced, that he had had.  
  
It wasn’t working. _Dean will be back any second. He has to. He promised._  But Sam was smart, for a freak. He could think of so many ways and reasons why Dean wasn’t coming back— _couldn’t come back, wouldn’t want to come back_ . The Impala could have broken down, he could have been run off the road, fallen down drunk, gotten his throat cut in a bar fight, or been jumped by a monster.  
  
And that was bad, that was horrible, but even worse, no matter how many times Sam repeated to himself that Dean would come back, that Dean would  _want_ to come back, the thought hovered in the back of his head, like an itch when his hands were tied, that Dean would remember _this time_  that Sam was a worthless monster, and just keep driving.  
  
And the little red numbers on the hotel clock kept clicking up.  
  
When it reached 2:30 a.m., Sam put his book away and went to the second bed in the room, where Dean had dumped the weapons bag. Sam stood for a second, eyes on the duffel. Dean checked that bag every night, unzipping it just enough to make sure that the contents were inside. He’d cleaned the knives and guns once when he thought that Sam was sleeping, but otherwise he left them alone.  
  
Sam didn’t know when his hands had moved to his face, or when he started shaking. As much as he didn’t want to go anywhere near that duffel, in no way wanted to encroach on Dean’s property, another force, another layer of panic, drove him toward it just as surely.  
  
He stood still, breathing on the edge of a panic attack, for what seemed like forever, hoping the entire time that he would be saved by the sound of the Impala pulling into the parking lot.  
  
He wasn’t. Dean didn’t come. And in the end, his hand at last rock steady, he touched Dean’s weapon’s bag. He opened the duffel only enough to make sure that the weapons were still there. One, at least. Just in case.  
  
At 3 o'clock, he went back to their bed, turned off the overhead light, and watched mountain lions chasing and eating rabbits— _that’s me, that’s me_ , he thought, though he wasn’t sure which he was, the monster or the prey.  
  
At 4 o'clock, when the screen blanked out into infomercials about lapis lazuli jewelry, he gave up all pretense of being okay, curled up with his face in the pillow, and consciously wrapped his hands around each end so he wouldn’t cut into his palms with his nails.  
  
At 5:14, when the news started to run again and he heard the Impala’s low growl in the parking lot, he almost sobbed in relief, not sure what he would have— _could have, should have_ —done if Dean hadn’t come home before the sun rose.  
  
Dean was very drunk— _or injured_ , an old, irrelevant part of Sam’s brain thought, _the guards got him_ . He tripped on the small step up from the parking lot and took four tries before he got the motel key card through the reader correctly, the whole time alternating between swearing and humming the intro to “Eye of the Tiger.”  
  
When the door finally opened—Sam had thought of getting up to open it, but he didn’t know how Dean, drunk, would respond, didn’t want to leave the safe illusion of the bed for the uncertain reality—Dean stumbled in. He wasn’t coordinated enough to hit the lightswitch—he tried once, and seemed not to notice when nothing happened—or get his jacket on the table when he stripped it off, but he stepped over the salt lines and bolted the door automatically.  
  
Even from the bed, Sam could smell the bar on him on him, the scent creeping through the sterile, empty motel room like water creeping across a floor. Sam was used to the smells: smoke, whiskey, beer were usual, so strong most nights Dean went out that his jacket always carried a hint of them.  
  
Sam took a deep breath—Dean wouldn’t notice, not when all his attention was focused on how to get his boots off without falling off the little hotel chair—and tasted the night on Dean, trying to ground himself in reality. He could rarely smell in dreams, and not this way, not this real. Yes, Dean had been gone hours longer than usual, but he was back, and everything else was the same. The smell, the sound, one foot stepping carefully over the salt line while Dean fumbled for his shirt buttons. It would be okay because it was all the same.  
  
But—it hit Sam hard, suddenly, like a club to the face—it wasn’t the same. Because over the customary odors of beer, smoke, a hint of urine, whiskey and rum, rose the reek of cheap rose perfume and sex.  
  
Sam’s hands tightened in the covers of the bed, and his entire body tensed as the old fear—profoundly different, he realized, from his fear of reals, or his fear of disappointing Dean—knocked him in the gut so hard that he wished he had died before feeling it again.  
  
The last time he had smelled  _sex_ that strong, Crusher had been grinding him into the shower wall, smearing his face with the spunk he'd just fucked into the werewolf lying unmoving on the floor, the blood rubbing onto Sam’s hips, on his shoulders where Crusher’s hands tightened on his bones.  
  
 _Dean’s here_ , he tried to tell himself.  _This isn’t Freak Camp. You’re safe with Dean._  
  
But Dean was the one who had _that smell_  on his skin. And that meant Dean had fucked someone. Or been fucked.  
  
Sam bit at the pillow to stop the sound—whether hissing rage or the whimper building in his stomach—from escaping him. No one would fuck Dean.  _No one_ would. Sam would kill them, hurt them, wouldn’t give a damn if he ended up back in FREACS afterward because if they had hurt Dean—  
  
But that wasn’t likely. More likely that Dean…  
  
Sam bit harder, wishing he could bite his lips or his tongue—pain was a good distraction—but Dean didn’t like that, didn’t want him hurting himself, because Dean was the best person ever. Dean was good and kind and forgiving of every mistake Sam had ever made, and Sam knew, in a way that he didn’t trust but  _knew_ all the same, that Dean would continue forgiving those mistakes day after day, and Dean was there now, in the room, after fucking somebody.  
  
Dean straightened, abruptly. “Pee,” he announced, his first non-swearword since opening the door. He stood, swaying, and stumbled toward the bathroom. When he tripped and balanced himself on the bed—brushing Sam’s foot—Sam had to fight every instinct to curl into a ball.  
  
Dean had fucked someone, hard. That wasn’t the smell a guard could get from just a blow or jerking himself off, Sam knew. This was a body spread out over an interrogation room floor, with a hunter’s boots casually pinning open the legs, or hands nailed to a tabletop with ass open on the edge. This was blood and screaming and Sam sitting at the table, palms up, knowing he could be next, or chained just shy of choking to the wall, knowing he could be next, could be next and then everything would be over, Dean would never come—  
  
Except this time Dean was in the room, Dean was watching and waiting his turn and Sam felt the idea like a physical pain, like a spiked club breaking his ribs, and he couldn’t drive the image from his head even though it was so wrong he felt the bile rising in his throat, seconds away from vomiting over the sheets.  
  
 _It’s different for reals_ , he thought desperately, trying to will away the nausea before he choked. _It has to be_ .  
  
He couldn’t imagine Dean doing that to another human being. Couldn’t reconcile his knowledge of sex with Dean’s casual jokes about hooking up with a hot chick in a Chick-fil-A, or that time two guys with matching mullets flirted with him in a dry goods store. Dean was too cheerful, too kind, too careful—even when he touched Sam, when he didn’t need to be careful at all—to be like Crusher, or Victor, or any other guard. He saved people. Sam couldn’t imagine him smiling while he hurt them.  
  
But the crushing fact was that Sam couldn’t imagine him doing that to a monster, either.  
  
However sex was between reals, that wasn’t how it could ever be for Sam. Sam was a monster, and there was only one way it could be between him and a real, and Dean wouldn’t ever want the dirty monster fuck that was the only thing Sam had to offer.  
  
If Dean didn’t want that, if Dean didn’t want  _Sam_ , that meant everything Sam had hoped for when he was surviving Freak Camp (the hope of being fucked,  _belonging_ to Dean forever) was nothing that he could ever get. All he could hope for now was that whatever reason Dean had for keeping him around—for feeding him, showing him things, smiling at him, laughing with him—lasted as long possible, because clearly he would never, ever fuck Sam.  
  
Unless he would.  
  
The toilet flushed, and the lights went on in the bathroom. Sam hid his eyes from the glare; Dean swore loudly, and the lights went off again. Then Dean stumbled out to the bed, and half-fell, half-crawled onto Sam.  
  
Sam let himself relax, let Dean’s weight press him into the mattress.  _Maybe this is it_ . Maybe Dean had just needed the relief of real sex before he could get the stomach to push Sam’s legs apart and thrust inside. Maybe he had to be this drunk to be able to ignore whatever cries Sam wouldn’t be able to hold back, or to forget it was a monster he was fucking.  
  
Sam didn’t want pain. He didn’t want to associate Dean with the sound of skin beating into skin, the feel of being ripped (cut, burned, ridden,  _fucked_ ) open, the heat and slippery sensation of blood dripping down his legs.  
  
But he wanted to be Dean’s. He wanted to be claimed. He wanted to be used, because if Dean had a use for him, maybe then Sam would know that Dean wouldn’t dump him just as inexplicably as he had stepped into Sam’s life.  
  
If being useful meant that he cooked or researched, sucked Dean’s cock every morning, waxed the Impala at every gas station or was bent over and fucked, all of those, none of those, it would be worth it, knowing he was more to Dean than a burden he had to care for, a barrier and setback to his normal life, and a freak piece of shit he should scrape off his shoes at the earliest opportunity.  
  
But Dean didn’t push his legs apart. Dean didn’t do anything but pull Sam close and tuck his unshaven chin in the crook of Sam’s shoulder. Sam felt the rasp of Dean’s stubble against his skin and the weight of Dean’s hand over his heart like one of Victor’s brands against his skin, holding him close, marking him, showing him where he belonged and what he deserved. But unlike anything that had ever come before, this claim brought him no pain.  
  
Sam fell asleep at last, with Dean’s breath rasping in his ear and the scent of whiskey in his nostrils slowly overcoming the smell of sex.  
  
~*~  
  
Dean woke up late—the sunlight streaming in the window meant it had to be evening, early afternoon at best, thank God he’d put down a credit card for the room—one arm flung over Sam, hugging him possessively to his chest. He had a bitch of a headache and the conviction that he had done something horrible the night before without a very clear idea of what it could be.  
  
“Hey, Sam,” he croaked. Fuck, his throat felt like he’d been mixing glass with his shots.  
  
Sam tipped his head back onto Dean’s shoulder. Granted, Dean hadn’t had a lot of experience waking up next to people before Sam, but it felt like he hadn’t been asleep. “Hey, Dean,” he whispered.  
  
Dean was grateful that Sam was speaking so softly. His whisper was just enough to be heard without setting off the low throbbing in his skull. “You…you been awake long?”  
  
Sam twitched slightly, a movement that Dean might not have even noticed if his head hadn’t been overly sensitive to everything. “Not too long.”  
  
Dean tried to fight off the sick feeling that didn’t completely come from the alcohol left in his body. He’d done something last night. He was struggling to figure out what the hell it had been, but he knew that there was something he should apologize for.  
  
Dean needed to move, but he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to leave the bed (and Sam) without help. “Sam, I gotta go…”  
  
Sam pulled himself away, haltingly, and Dean was probably imagining the reluctance in the movement, how Sam moved slowly away from him as though he’d been drinking Daniel’s on the rocks, without the rocks.  
  
Dean just sat on the side of the bed for a second, letting the world spin and his head tell him how much it wanted him to eat shit and die. When he forced himself up—he’d walked on a fucking broken leg once, he could deal with a hangover, even if Sam was here to see it this time and that made all the difference—Sam moved to his side with enough speed and coordination to confirm that he hadn’t really been sleeping when Dean woke up. Dean was torn between guilt—Sam didn’t need to stay with him if he’d been awake, Sam never needed to stay with him, Sam could be his own fucking person if he wanted to and Dean wouldn’t say one damn thing about it because Sam deserved everything—and gratitude for the hand on his arm getting him to the bathroom.  
  
When he reached the door, he forced himself to smile and held onto the frame in a death grip that Sam hopefully wouldn’t notice. “Hey, Sam, I got it from here. Thanks. I’ll be out in a sec.”  
  
Sam retreated, but he didn’t look that happy about it. When Dean closed the door, he leaned against it and breathed, hoping that Sam knew “be out in a sec” meant a hell of a lot longer than that.  
  
First, he had to piss. He managed standing up, grabbing onto the sink once when the world seemed to be sliding out of focus, but after he’d zipped himself up, he closed the lid and sat, all the energy drained out of him with the urine. He didn’t think he needed to barf—though the occasional surges his stomach made to crawl up his throat made him think long and hard about that—but he eyed the trash can thoughtfully, just in case, while patting himself down.  
  
Fuck, he’d just crashed last night. He’d gotten his jacket off, but he hadn’t gotten out of his jeans, and the belt buckle had left an imprint against his stomach. He’d been lucky that he hadn’t taken his gun out last night—probably would have shot his own dick off—because the knives were definitely still strapped to his ankles, and his wallet was crammed into his back pocket, mashed and misshapen from being slept on.  
  
Dean pulled it out and tried to smooth out the edge. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d slept on it, wouldn’t be the last, but at least it was something to focus on while he tried to get his game together so he could figure out what the hell had happened last night, go back out, and smile at Sam.  
  
He was down by about twenty bucks from what he’d gone out with—he vaguely remembered playing pool, so between the pool money and the fact that he’d  _still_ dropped a twenty, he really had gone to town—and had two phone numbers tucked before the fake credit card. One, from Sherli, on a stained bar napkin, and the other, from N., on a business card with a lipstick kiss obscuring one of the numbers scrawled across the back. He also—  
  
Shit.  
  
Fuck.  
  
Both condoms were gone.  
  
By the time he and John had had the Talk, Dean had already had five years of unsupervised late-night cable, a semester of sex-ed, and a decent amount of groping with that chick with the eyeliner in seventh grade under his belt (in a manner of speaking), and most of the information presented hadn’t been that new. What he had walked away from that talk knowing was that if he ever came home with a mysterious rash, ran to Vegas after a hot night, or got a girl pregnant, John would kick his ass backwards and forwards  _forever_ . Condoms, sometime in high school, became not just smart, but a  _necessity_ .  
  
He could remember N. now. Nancy. Pretty, tipsy, sandstone blond, wide smile, confident hands going unerringly to what they both wanted. She’d said  _sugar, I’m not_ — when he pulled out his wallet, and then _fuck yeah_  when he pulled out the first condom, like it was the greatest possible turn-on.  
  
The sex—like the drinks (shots, probably) beforehand—wasn’t that clear, but he’d had worse, and it had felt so fucking good just to let go and know that the person he was sliding into wanted it, wanted him, was there because he had a pretty face and no expectations. There’d been a bed (her place, he thought, or a friend’s, or the back room of the bar,  _fuck_ Winchester get your head together), and pink condoms to match her pink lube, and it had been good, but what made his stomach drop and his hands clench was that he couldn’t remember using the second condom.  
  
Smart money said he’d dropped it, or she’d blown him at the bar and he didn’t remember or  _something_ ; it reminded him that he still had his damn jeans on for fuck’s sake. But the small, panicked, semi-reasonable voice in the back of his head said that Sam wouldn’t have fought him and it would have felt so damn good.  
  
He showered, alternating between thinking of what it would feel like to have Sam on him, underneath him, around him, and thinking of absolutely fucking nothing except how he might just be able to fall, hit his head, and drown if he angled it right. Maybe. If he got lucky—fuck, even that thought made him wince.  
  
The shower got the smell of the bar off him, wiped away some of the physical evidence of the evening and cleared his head, but it went nowhere near far enough in making him feel clean. Even after scrubbing himself dry and gulping handfuls of water from the tap to ease his stomach and the dull ache in his head, Dean felt almost sicker than he had when he went in. Probably because he wasn’t sure what was waiting for him beyond the door.  
  
Sam was sitting on the bed, hands clasped between his knees, fingernails apparently fascinating. He looked up when Dean came out, reminding him of nothing so much as a startled, partly-domesticated cat not sure if it should run or stay.  
  
Dean went over and sat beside him. He could feel Sam’s warmth even through his shirt, almost imagined he could feel him shivering. The room wasn’t that cold, even with his bare legs crossed over the comforter.  
  
“Hey, Sam.” Not the best opening line he’d ever come up with, but it would have to do.  
  
Sam looked at him through his bangs. He seemed in some place between fear and comfort, like Dean was the whole world and that world might fall apart at any second. “W-was your shower—”  
  
Dean felt even more like shit. “Good. Yeah, really good.” He laid a hand on Sam’s wrist, and Sam stilled completely. “When did I come in last night?”  
  
Sam looked down again. “Five f-f-fourteen a.m.”  
  
“Oh, shit. Sam, I’m...” He was so sorry, and still not sure what for, but he shouldn’t have left Sam alone that long. Sam had to have been waiting up for him and...there was more here that he wasn’t getting, but that at least he could see, that at least he could understand and feel shitty about. But he had to ask the next question. “Did I...?”  
  
Sam shook his head, even though Dean hadn’t really gotten out the question yet. “You came in, you went to sleep. Th-that’s all, Dean.”  
  
Thank fuck. Or maybe not. Dean felt some measure of relief seep through him. He might not be the best sort of guy, he might have a lot to regret, but at least his worst nightmares (also his hottest dreams, fuck, not the time) hadn’t come true last night. “I’m glad. I’m glad I...didn’t hurt you, Sam.” There it was, what he had to say. Sam might not understand, Sam might think he was just going crazy, but at least the words had come out.  
  
Sam was staring at him as though he had said the strangest thing. Like he was trying to piece apart the syllables and figure out something buried in them, and Dean was far too hungover for that. But he also couldn’t look away from the dagger-edged focus in Sam’s eyes, couldn’t look away from him when that was what he’d told Sam to do.  
  
“Wh-what about...” Sam took a slow, too-even breath, and never broke eye contact. “Wh-what about the...person?”  
  
Dean blinked. Had someone been snooping around the hotel room while he was gone? Did someone get close to Sam? Had he missed a connection somewhere, between the alcohol and the sleep deprivation? “Sam, wha—who?”  
  
Sam darted his eyes away and pulled his legs closer to his chest. “The p-person. You—” Sam moved his body, almost a shrug and almost a flinch, and it made Dean’s chest ache.  
  
And then he  _got_ it, what Sam was asking, and the uncomfortable feeling in his chest made him cough and run his hand over his mouth. Why had he thought Sam wouldn’t notice? Sam noticed everything. "Oh, that—just a hot one-night stand, Sam, seriously. I mean, yeah, she was smoking and couldn’t get enough of me, probably would’ve kept me there a couple more days if it was up to her, but I had to get back to you, and...it was fun for a night, you know, but I'm not gonna see her again." Dean rubbed his hands on his pants. “Probably has a boyfriend or something, just going out for a spin. Fuck, Sam, I’m so sorry. For being out so late, and waking you up and, shit, yeah. I’m sorry.”  
  
Sam didn’t look profoundly reassured (what, what could Dean promise him? That he would be Sam’s forever? That she had meant nothing? Where did Dean even get off making promises like that to a kid like Sam, when he didn’t know where the hell they were coming from, where they were going, when he could barely keep himself together and didn’t know what Sam wanted from what they had anyway?) but his legs had eased within the circle of his arms, and some of the tension slid from his shoulders. “Don’t worry, it’s okay, you don’t have to—I’m just glad you’re...” Sam stopped himself and shook his head. He was still looking down, still almost trembling next to Dean, and more than anything, Dean wanted to reach out, to comfort him in some way, but knowing that Sam knew what he had been doing last night away from him...he just didn’t know if he could make himself do it.  
  
And then, hand visibly trembling (maybe from the cold, Dean should have fucking turned the air conditioning off when he left, he was a complete idiot for letting something like that drift out his ears), Sam cautiously touched Dean’s thigh, fingers curling over the denim, closing tight like Dean was the only thing keeping him afloat, together.  
  
Sam’s hand on his leg felt dangerous, forbidden, scary and wonderful at the same time, but Dean couldn’t just leave him shaking. He closed his own hand over Sam’s and held on.  
  
~*~  
  
Dean had been talking about it for the last few hundred miles: the ocean, the beach, how it was gonna be like nothing Sam had ever imagined before, not even close to when they crossed the Mississippi or passed the reservoirs outside Boulder. It was enough to cautiously, guardedly, raise Sam’s expectations, though he enjoyed most listening to Dean talk, how he gestured and glanced at Sam every few seconds for his reaction. It didn’t really matter what lay at the destination; Sam was more than happy with what he had right now: Dean, the Impala, and the soaring, heartbreaking notes of classical music from the radio.  
  
“This station comes in best,” Dean had said, the first time he stopped on a clarinet concerto. “Sound okay to you, Sammy?”  
  
The question momentarily took his breath away. He knew this wasn’t Dean’s kind of music. Dean had never listened to it, after all, until he found out Sam liked it. And though Dean was so kind as to get books for him, to insist that Sam get a salad or whatever he had liked previously in restaurants, Sam had still never dreamed Dean would choose to listen to  _Sam’s_ music over his own. The Impala was made for Dean’s music, for Led Zeppelin and rock-and-roll, the bass thrumming under Sam’s seat. And yet the fact that Dean would offer to switch to Sam’s music, to give him that privilege like he was any other real—it filled Sam with the best kind of indescribable light and joy, just as Dean had done so many times before. He might not understand what had happened when Dean was out the other night, but he didn’t need to in order to know that Dean was still the best person in the world, and Sam was his.  
  
They had coasted down I-77 into South Carolina, where it would still be warm enough even though September was almost over, Dean said. Warm enough for what, he didn’t say, and perhaps Sam could have asked, but he didn’t mind waiting to find out. Sam liked what he saw of the state, though that had been true of everywhere they’d gone since leaving Colorado (heading east, north, south, but never west). He could never tire of the green, wide open spaces, the thick forests or tan fields, the rolling hills.  
  
They had lunch in North Charleston, then headed south of the city, where crowds would be even sparser on a weekday. Sam caught glimpses of the blue-gray water, but was content to lean back and watch the palm trees passing, waiting for Dean to pick the right place to show him _the ocean_ .  
  
Dean finally parked in a grassy lot off of the road. The moment Sam opened the door, he inhaled a strong, unfamiliar scent, sharp with salt and other odors harder to identify. He was so preoccupied with what his nose was telling him, he didn’t notice at first the different type of earth shifting under his feet. Where they had parked it was mixed with grass, but further out he could see it plainly: tan and fine-grained, packed at first but then sinking under his feet.  _Sand_ , this must be sand. It would be very difficult to run across, Sam noted. He could also hear a muted, continual roar that he tried, in vain, to compare to some of the noises he’d heard in Intensive Containment. Dean didn’t look alarmed, though, so Sam supposed the sound was usual for this area, a part of the ocean no one had mentioned in the various resource documents when he had read about marine supernaturals, or the one book about whales.  
  
They walked a ways across the sand, past the small hills ( _dunes_ ) and a few ramshackle houses and sheds on stilts, the steady roar and tangy saltiness of the air growing louder and stronger, until there was nothing but flat sand before them. Then Sam lifted his eyes and looked at the ocean.  
  
He had known the Atlantic Ocean was second only to the Pacific in size. He could name most of the countries it bordered. The Vikings had crossed it in the north from Greenland, and the Portuguese in the south to Brazil. He even recalled reading that the Atlantic Ocean was the saltiest of the five oceans, which accounted for how he felt he could taste it in his mouth now. But nothing he had read had prepared him for what it actually was.  
  
The ocean was vast. Vaster than the highways and plains which had seemed to stretch to infinity when he first walked out from Freak Camp’s walls, because for the first time Sam had an uninterrupted view of the  _horizon_ , that line dividing water from sky, cutting between and sealing the boundary between them. He couldn’t even begin to estimate how many miles stretched between him and that line, because the more he moved toward it, the further it would recede. It was easy to believe then that the ocean really was  _infinite_ . That was simpler, easier to grasp than the idea of  _more_ oceans, continents dwarfing the one that lay behind him, and the countless people dwelling in them, beyond what his eye could see.  
  
Sam wasn’t aware of beginning to shiver with his arms crossed tight over his chest, until Dean stepped close, enough that Sam could feel the warmth of Dean’s chest against his back, solid and reassuring. Slowly, Dean wrapped his arms over Sam’s, pulling him back and holding without confining.  
  
Sam let out a long, shaky exhale, feeling himself unwind. He was not alone, even in the vastness of the world. Dean was with him and never letting go.  
  
They stayed there for a few more minutes. Sam was more at peace than he had ever been or thought he could be, feeling the steady beat of Dean’s heart against his back, but he felt something should be said, some acknowledgement that Dean had given him this day, Dean had given him everything, and  _grateful_ was too hollow and weak a word.  
  
“You’re right,” he said at last. “I couldn’t have imagined this.”  
  
Dean released him, but he caught Sam’s hand as he dropped his arms, and he was smiling as he stepped forward to stand beside him. “C’mon. You haven’t really  _been_ to the ocean until you get your feet wet.”  
  
Sam blinked. “Is—that allowed?”  
  
Dean laughed, but he ducked and turned his head in a way that was unlike him, like maybe he didn’t want Sam to see his face. “Of course it is, Sammy. Let’s go.” He tugged on Sam’s hand again, drawing him after.  
  
Halfway down the beach—close enough for Sam to see the whitecaps of the smaller waves racing fast and faster, overlapping each other, and crests crashing at the shore—Dean stopped to unlace and kick off his boots, followed by his socks, and rolled his jeans up to his knees. Sam copied him. The texture of the sand under his toes startled him; he would have stayed there longer, to analyze and adjust, see if it was easier or harder to move across the sand in bare feet, to run, to tumble—but Dean was moving steadily to the waterline, and Sam was drawn inexorably after him.  
  
He stopped again as they reached the wet sand—packed differently, though it still sank under his feet, every step leaving its mark behind—where the leading waves stretched furthest, as though yearning to touch him, before being sucked backwards. _The moon_ , he thought. _The moon’s gravity draws the oceans, creating tides_ , and he could not look away from the water, away from the next filmy wave rolling in. He couldn’t even have said where Dean was.  
  
Then he heard a whoop, which broke the spell, dragging his head up. Dean was wading into the waves to the left of him, kicking at the water. “Not too bad!” he yelled. “It won’t freeze your toes off, Sam, c’mon!”  
  
Sam took one step forward, closer to the smallest waves, and watched his toes sink halfway into the wet sand. He could probably bury his whole foot in it, if he tried. It likely wouldn’t be difficult to pull out. He took another step forward, realized he was holding his breath, and forced himself to exhale and inhale. He didn’t know why this seemed so monumental. Seawater was no different from tap, apart from its high salinity. Perhaps because this water  _moved_ unceasingly, waves churning back and forth as though each curl of propelled water was sentient, with a will of its own, obedient to the greater, endless whole.  
  
Sam’s eyes were fixed to the nearest, flattest outpost of waves, tracking their pattern as they overlapped and receded, where the most ambitious one would touch next. He took another step in, then another, planting his feet carefully where the waves had already been, until he was deep in their territory and there would be no retreat. He would choose, however. He would choose where they took him.  
  
He set his foot into the next V where two past waves had left a faint foamy outline, and let his foot yield to the soft suction of the sand, grounding and bracing him. He wouldn’t flinch. He was ready.  
  
The next wave roared up, cresting, spilling, rushing forward with its remains, and a half-inch thick when it smacked directly into his ankle.  
  
He didn’t audibly gasp, but his mouth opened, watching in amazement as the clear water rushed over his foot—both his feet—then sucked back again. It was chilly, but it felt  _good_ in a way that caught him completely off-guard. He could have watched the waves for hours and never have predicted that it would feel like  _that_ , cool and sharp and smoothly embracing his bare skin.  
  
Without thinking, he took several quick steps forward, eager to feel it again. The next wave obliged him, breaking forcefully over his feet, and he felt the churning energy of the water. He was part of it, part of the ocean.  
  
Sam lifted his eyes to meet Dean’s, saw him grinning, with him in the water. A giddy exhilaration filled Sam, unlike anything he’d experienced before. Perhaps it came from stepping out of the land he had known all his life, walking on a natural power he had never conceived of.  
  
Sam turned once, swiping his foot over the top of the water, watching the arc of water it formed. The droplets flashed in the sun, a beautiful thing Sam had created, and he was laughing as he had never laughed before in his life. Not a low, quickly stifled sound, but something full-bellied and made of sheer delight. It almost seemed to come from outside him—perhaps from the deep roar and resounding crashes of the waves, landing one after another in an infinite and unstoppable cycle, pounding and forceful, yet painless—but the laughter too was part of him now, and he couldn’t hold it back.  
  
He splashed forward, seizing Dean’s hands—or maybe Dean grabbed his, hard to say with the roar of the waves and the roar of his heart making it hard to hear, hard to breathe without laughing, hard to talk without smiling. Dean’s face was lit up too with understanding, or perhaps it was merely a reflection of Sam’s, and he looked younger than Sam could remember seeing him since those distant, precious visits at Freak Camp, and more brilliantly beautiful, almost hard to look at directly. But Sam did, until he laughed again and spun away, kicking up more water, and then racing across the shore without conscious decision. The cascading waves beckoned, and he knew he wasn’t really leaving Dean behind, that Dean would keep up with him.  
  
Sam darted in and out of the waves, skipping ahead of one, crashing directly into the next, welcoming the spray of water over his arms and chest and face. When he got knee-deep, the water slowed him, dragging him back, and Dean caught up. They circled each other, splashing and kicking and chasing, and through it all, Sam laughed.  
  
He had been out of Freak Camp for seventy-two days. For the first time, he understood  _this_ was what it was to be free.  
  
~*~  
  
At sundown (the water glimmering with light reflected off the other side of the sky; Dean said they’d wake up early tomorrow, if Sam wanted, to see the sun rise over the ocean), they left the beach walking on sand-dusted feet, carrying their shoes, their jeans soaked almost to the waist.  
  
Even when the golden light on the waves had dimmed, the exhilaration sang in Sam’s veins like a second ocean, so when Dean handed him a motel towel for his turn to dust off his feet, Sam grabbed him by the belt loops instead, tugged him that foot closer. Dean half-fell against Sam, pinning him lightly against the sun-warmed Impala.  
  
Their mouths met effortlessly, drawn by straightforward alignment. For a long moment it was a still, sweet kiss; then Sam pressed in encouragingly, mouthing at Dean’s lower lip, and Dean’s hand settled on the back of his head.  
  
Kissing Dean was everything and nothing like Sam had remembered. It still threatened to knock out his knees (he was extra grateful for the smooth, supporting metal at his back) and heated his belly with a warm glow, like hot chocolate. But  _this_ was indescribably better, because now Sam was kissing Dean, and he understood that Dean was good; not just in the way he’d always thought before, but because he knew Dean  _cared_ for him: the extent of his patience and resolve, his unwavering commitment. Dean was with him tonight, and would be tomorrow, and nothing and no one could change that. Dean would give him three good meals a day, and hold him close if Sam fell sick, and every day he would look for ways to make Sam happy and drive away anything that tried to hurt him; and for all this, he asked for nothing from Sam in return, but Sam’s honesty.  
  
Sam knew there was nothing he could do over his entire life to repay that. He even thought that Dean wouldn’t like the phrasing of that— _paying back, making up to_ —because he had never asked for that in the least. But Sam would try, and he would seek to make Dean happy, even if that meant playing real or learning to stop being so damn afraid.  
  
He didn’t know that he could do it. He didn’t know that he could repay (reward, return) the kindness and care he received every day from Dean, but he would try. And he could kiss Dean now.  



	16. Chapter 16

They were in an ice cream shop just south of Rochester, Minnesota—Dean insisted they share a banana split and a hot fudge sundae, even though it was Wednesday—when his phone buzzed. Dean twitched and jerked the device out of his pocket, but whatever he saw on the screen relaxed him. The smile that instantly suffused his face as he raised the phone to his ear reminded Sam of how Dean had looked earlier when Sam had said he preferred the hot fudge to the banana split. Sam felt a funny, unfamiliar twist in his gut.  He loved when something he did made Dean that happy, and he didn’t often see anything else draw out that same reaction, so it was strange to watch his face light up over the phone.  That was good, he told himself. Sam shouldn’t be the only one Dean had to make him happy.  
  
“Hey, Bobby,” Dean said cheerfully, and for once he didn’t step away or look nervously at Sam while saying the hunter’s name. “What’s up? Yeah, we’re just over the Minnesota border. Yeah, really good. We hit up Cheeseville, got all cheddared out, Sam likes...yeah.” There it was, the furtive glance that made Sam’s stomach clench. The only time Dean made him feel even a little like a monster was when Sam knew the wariness in his eyes was about him. “Yeah, let me just check with Sam. We’re about four hours out...hey! I drive the limit! Okay, yeah, I’ll call again when we’ve got an ETA. You too.” Dean flipped the phone shut, set it down next to his ice cream, and took a deep breath. He’d picked up his spoon idly during the phone call, swirling it absently in his half-melted mix of banana and vanilla. “Hey, Sam, what do you think about swinging by Bobby’s?”  
  
Sam clenched down on the instinctive terror. Lessons from Freak Camp suggested that if Dean brought him to a hunter’s home, Sam would be interrogated, pushed to his knees, passed around. He didn’t believe that. Indeed, he believed now that Dean would hurt anyone who threatened him. Whether that was because Dean thought of Sam as _his_ , and his alone—that would be nice, and some days Sam was sure it was true, that he was Dean’s and Dean would never leave him behind, would never stop treating him like a _real_ —or just because Dean hated that behavior in hunters and monsters alike, Sam did not know.  
  
So Sam wanted to believe that Bobby wouldn’t hurt him ( _while Dean was around)_ ,and Dean never left Sam alone unless he could handle it. He always asked if he could leave, if Sam would be okay, and if this one time Sam said that maybe it would be good for Dean to stay, or for Sam to come with him, he was sure that Dean would indulge him. And as long as Dean was there, he could be brave.  
  
But more important than Sam’s abilities or lack thereof was the fact that Dean wanted this.  Knowing that let Sam smile as he looked into Dean’s eyes, and say honestly that sure, they could go visit.  
  
Dean’s eyes crinkled in warm pride and pleasure, and he leaned around the table to catch Sam’s mouth.  Sam’s stomach swooped and then soared.  Kissing Dean was his favorite thing above all favorite things, and it was extra sweet to lick the taste of ice cream and fudge from Dean’s tongue.  
  
They had kissed half a dozen times since the beach—not too often (Sam had the feeling it wasn’t as often as either of them would have liked), but Dean still seemed almost skittish about it, and Sam was mostly too uncertain himself to reel Dean in as he had done the first time. Half the time, having had the power to pull Dean close seemed like a dream to him, too unreal and wonderful to have actually happened without repercussions.  
  
The closer they drove to South Dakota, the more Dean talked about Hunter Singer. It wasn’t that he talked about him constantly or made a particular point of dropping the name, but more of his stories began with “so Bobby called us about this job” or ended with “Bobby called me a damn idjit, but that just means he’s glad I didn’t get eaten.”  
  
Sam didn’t have a lot of experience figuring out who was important to Dean, but he used to talk about his father the way he’d been talking about Bobby. “It’ll be great, Sam,” Dean said, grinning. “I mean, I haven’t seen Bobby in months, and, you know, Bobby’s not the best conversationalist on a cell.”  
  
Dean’s smile and body language said that the visit would be no problem, but something running under the words, a forceful overconfidence or the sharp edge of tension, made Sam think it wouldn’t be that simple. No, Sam thought this was going to be _hard,_ the way going to a mall, even on a weekday, was still hard, or worse. The thought made Sam’s hands tighten on his thighs, for that second hard enough to bruise, before he forced himself to let go. He had to remember that Dean would be with him, and that Dean knew it would be hard but was still confident they could work through it.  
  
~*~  
  
Two hours from Sioux Falls, Dean stopped to fill the tank though they were just below the halfway mark on the gas gauge.  
  
“Gotta run to the john—you wanna fill her up, Sam?”    
  
Dean had shown Sam how to pump gas the other week, and Sam had done it once or twice on his own since—it wasn’t the first time Dean had seen how the kid was scarily good at learning and memorizing directions, some kind of genius, maybe—but he still hesitated before giving a short nod, his jaw taut. As the miles sped away under them, drawing them closer to the South Dakota border, he had grown quieter and quieter, hunching his shoulders in a way Dean hadn’t seen in weeks.  Foreboding prickled over the back of Dean’s neck, and he tried to drive it away by telling stories of all the times he’d been to Bobby’s over the years, recovering from hunts and practicing with a crossbow while Dad was gone.  Sam listened—of course he did—but he didn’t smile like he usually did during Dean’s stories, and Dean often got that familiar twist of misgiving that his words were going to fuck them up in new and interesting ways.  
  
As Sioux Falls grew more prominent in the road signs, Dean started drumming his fingers against the steering wheel as second thoughts itched their way under his skin.  Maybe this wasn’t the smoking idea he’d thought. Maybe Sam wasn’t ready to meet Bobby yet. Stupid worry, Bobby wouldn’t lay so much as a finger on Sam; he’d cosigned the fucking release papers, after all.  And if Sam was going to meet anyone who knew where he’d been, Bobby was the best bet. Dean would trust him with his life, his Impala, and he could damn well trust him with Sam. Just because they were both getting a case of nerves didn’t mean the whole thing would go up in flames.  
  
Still, it didn’t hurt to do a little prep work. Which was why he was making a call out of Sam’s hearing during their not-exactly-necessary pit stop.  
  
“Hey, Bobby.”  
  
“Kid.  Don’t tell me you got turned around at Jackson, decided to check out Spirit Lake and the Cave of Natural Wonders.”  
  
“Nah, nah, we’re on track.  Get there before three, I’d say.  Hey, I have a favor to ask.”  
  
“Yeah?” Bobby said guardedly.  
  
“‘S not much—just, could you round up the mutts behind the house, make sure they’re not gonna be barking up our asses as soon as we roll in?”  
  
“Sure,” Bobby said, after a short pause.  “I can take care of that for you.”  
  
“Thanks, Bobby.” The wave of relief took Dean by surprise.  He ducked around the aisle to check on Sam, the impulse as habitual as checking for his gun before a job. Sam looked very thin and alone, standing by the trunk of the Impala with his head tilted down.  Watching the pump, of course.    
  
“Yeah, no problem.  Anything else? Music preferences, special diet?  If he wants tofu, you’re going to have to pick it up yourself.”  The tone was sardonic, but Dean knew the main question was serious.    
  
“Nah, he’s really not a picky eater.  But, uh, if you could just...”  Dean hesitated, grappling with what he was coming to _understand_ but could barely fumble into words. “Just—take it easy,” he said at last.  “Don’t, don’t crowd him or anything. It’s all new to him, y’know?”  
  
Bobby’s silence made Dean very aware of the whir of the slushie machine. When Bobby spoke again, Dean felt his heart rate pick back up. “Yeah.  I hear ya.”  
  
Dean bit his lip, eyes still on Sam. “He’s come really far.  Seriously.  But new places can throw him off.  They take some adjusting.”  
  
“Stop worrying, idjit.  I’m not expecting him to be Martha Stewart.  I’ll see ya in a couple hours.”  
  
“Yeah,” Dean replied, but Bobby had already hung up.  
  
When he got back to the Impala, Dean put on his best grin and gave Sam’s shoulders a quick rub. Sam watched him, like he tracked Dean the same way Dean tracked him, and it was unnerving and empowering and Dean hoped dearly he wasn’t going to fuck this up. “We’re good to burn some rubber, Sam?”  
  
“Yeah,” Sam said, still soft, and hurried to the passenger seat.  
  
This was going to be fine, Dean told himself.  Of course Sam was worried, but that wasn’t a harbinger of doom.  Dean knew Bobby.  They had nothing to worry about.  
  
~*~  
  
When the Impala tripped the first early warning alarm pulling into his yard, Bobby stopped fiddling with his bookshelf—not like he needed to sort his references again, the system was about as organized as he could stand to make it (he had decided, about the sixth time he lost Lotte Grimm’s annotated bestiary, that he had to put things where he could find them rather than how it made sense to anyone else)—and went out to meet the boys.  
  
The first glimpse of Dean was heartening.  He stood tall and moved with that easy Winchester confidence that Bobby had missed the last several times he’d seen Dean. Those had been rough days, rougher for how the kid wouldn’t admit his own damn father had broken his heart, and Bobby had grown wary of the restless, aimless energy that emptied half his liquor cabinet.    
  
This was Dean Winchester back in his element, flashing a grin at Bobby as he leaned back against his smooth spotless car (how the kid drove thousands of miles through Dust Bowl, USA and still maintained his machine in flawless condition, was beyond Bobby), before glancing nervously back toward the passenger seat.  
  
Then Sam got out of the car.  Bobby felt his gut clench and his mouth dry up, one hand too steady on the knife at his belt. He recognized the reaction—his instinctive response on hunts when a monster could be around any curve—and that itself made him sicker.  
  
He didn’t know if he’d have recognized this Sam if he saw him in downtown Sioux Falls; strange enough to see the boy in ordinary clothes (let alone _upright_ , not chained to the floor; _dammit, how could you just walk away from something like that, Singer_ ), no collar around his neck, no dried blood streaking the floppy brown hair. _Sam Winchester_ , according to the paperwork; forever 88UI6703 according to the tattoo across his collarbone.  
  
Sam moved slowly around the car, eyes skittering once toward the porch and Bobby, then dropping to the gravel under his feet.  Dean waited for him with a patience that Bobby wouldn’t have believed a few months ago. He had one hand open and half extended, as though he expected Sam to grab it. Sam didn’t. Shoulder to shoulder, they walked up to the porch together.  
  
Bobby kept his hands in his pockets and a fixed cheery smile on his face. “Hey, Dean, glad you could finally make it up to this dried-up stretch of the woods.”  
  
“Hey, Bobby.”  Dean faked calm well—kid wasn’t legal to drink, and he had the swagger to be FBI, IRS, and ASC all rolled into one—but now Bobby could see the subtle tension in his shoulders, down his back. Probably the kid even _thought_ he was calm, but it was hard to say who was supported more by Dean’s hand on Sam’s back. “I’d like you to meet Sam.”  
  
They’d met before.  Once in the yard, when Bobby hadn’t wanted to do more than assess the kid’s threat to Dean, and once in the interrogation room (and dammit, Bobby could see that moment now, the emptiness in the kid’s eyes, the fear so complete and accepted, without hope, it didn’t even make him shake; Bobby wasn’t sure he should ever forget, but it was harder to live with now, with the victim before him).  
  
Then Sam lifted his eyes, hazel peeking through his brown bangs.  “H-hello,” he said, the second syllable almost inaudible. That one word seemed to take all his courage, and his gaze fell again to his feet.  
  
“Hey Sam,” Bobby said, and hoped his voice didn’t sound as forcibly hearty as it did to his own ears.  “Good to have you here.  Come on in.”  
  
The boys followed him across the threshold with the devil’s trap painted on the ceiling, to the kitchen where Bobby pulled out two bottles of root beer.  Sam’s attention was still wholly fixed on the floor, so Dean took both and passed one to Sam, who wrapped thin fingers around the neck as though he wasn’t sure what to do with the bottle.  
  
Bobby motioned them toward the living room.  “Go on, kick back.”  As they settled down on the sofa (didn’t help his nerves to see Dean Winchester docilely doing as he was told without bitching), he took an armchair—gun hidden in the stuffing in back—and tried to look at ease while Dean looked nervous and Sam didn’t so much as glance up from the bottle cradled in his lap. Bobby popped open the top on his own root beer and felt his fist tense around the neck of the bottle. The holy water test didn’t work if the mark didn’t take a drink.  “So, you boys been traveling?”  
  
Dean latched onto the topic like he would a pretty girl, launching into a rambling account of their zigzag from Colorado, across the Midwest, to the east coast and back. Dean wandered even more than usual, glancing at Sam as though waiting for his two cents, occasionally nudging his hand. The only time Sam moved during the entire thing was when he lifted that same hand to take a drink.  
  
The whole scene unnerved Bobby. Yeah, he was grateful Sam was passing the holy water test—he had no idea how he could run the rest of the standards, though given how long the kid was in FREACS, most of them were redundant—but watching Dean cater to the kid and get no response, that was familiar. Bobby’d seen it in nursing homes sometimes, when a husband or wife was still hoping their partner would shake off the vegetative state and be _themselves_ again.  
  
Dean ran down after about ten minutes of aimless rambling. Bobby was impressed. Not many kids his age could carry a conversation that long when no one else was participating. Bobby tried to help him along, he really did, but it was hard to care about where the boys had been when there hadn’t been a monster involved, and he couldn’t force himself to forget the possible threat in the room. Or the look in that same boy’s eyes when he’d been tortured.  
  
Eventually it became too much, for any of them. When Dean stammered to a halt after a half-enthusiastic comparison of mom-and-pop chain french fries around the Great Lakes, Bobby made a noncommittal noise and then cleared his throat.  “Hey, you boys feeling hungry yet?”  
  
“Yeah,” Dean said at once, with some relief.  “Yeah, we could eat.  We had an early lunch.”  
  
Bobby clapped his hands on his knees and stood up, catching the slight twitch in Sam’s hands as he did. “Good, I’ll go heat up the grill.  Picked up a few steaks from the store last weekend, plus baked potatoes and corn, if that’ll suit ya.”  
  
“Sure.”  Dean glanced at Sam, who still hadn’t lifted his head.  “Feeling hungry, Sam?”  He nudged Sam’s knee with the back of his knuckles.  
  
Sam peeked up under his bangs, barely enough for Bobby to glimpse his eyes, and replied in an undertone he couldn’t catch.  
  
“Not a problem.” Dean looked back to Bobby. “Maybe just half of one for Sam?”  
  
“Sure thing.”    
  
Bobby was glad that grilling gave him an excuse to escape the house. There was a good possibility that there was _nothing_ wrong with Sam, and for all their sakes, Bobby should get the hell out once in a while.  
  
The coals had just reached a nice glow when Dean swung out through the porch screen door.  “We got the table set, anything else you need done?”  
  
Bobby gave him a _look_ , tempted to run the holy water test again. The last time Dean Winchester had been this helpful about the house was just about _never_. “I’ll let you know.”  
  
Dean hovered on the porch a few moments more before returning—more slowly—to his charge inside.  Bobby exhaled, muttering to himself while laying out the steaks.  
  
~  
  
Dean had handed Sam plates, silverware, and napkins, so Sam had set them out—three sets of each, three places set at geometric angles on the table—with hands that shook only a little.  He had prepared the dinner table for the Director and his guests, so he knew where the spoons went (almost ridiculously easy with only one knife, spoon and fork per plate), how to line them up evenly.  But no matter how straight and clean the settings were, the number didn’t make any more sense. Neither Dean nor Hunter Singer had mentioned a third hunter in the house, and Dean had never once had Sam set an empty place—he shouldn’t try to anticipate, the Director had taught him that along with the name, use, and proper placement of a salad fork—and by that logic, the third place was for Sam.  To sit across from a hunter, as they ate.    
  
Or maybe he’d eat after Hunter Singer and Dean did.  That would make more sense.  
  
Dean always ate with Sam, but surely that would change in the company of another hunter.  Propriety, decency, and basic respect had already been pressed to the limit, if not beyond, just by allowing a monster in a hunter’s home and giving him the privileges of a real, to sit on the furniture and drink with them.  Some lines had to be kept.  Maybe he would be allowed to eat at the same time, but sit on the floor at Dean’s feet. That would be a kindness. He could handle that. _Please_.    
  
“Looks pretty impressive, Sam.”  
  
He jumped, realizing a second too late he shouldn’t have. He hadn’t flinched at Dean’s voice for weeks.  Dean wouldn’t like it, and it was just another mistake at the wrong time and place.  
  
“Whoa, whoa.”  Dean set down the chair he was carrying—a third chair for the three place settings, for three people, _please no Dean—_ and reached for him slow and cautious. Sam forced his breathing to even out, forced himself to be still as Dean touched his arms, rubbing them.  “It’s gonna be okay, Sam.”  
  
Though it made it impossible to control his breathing ( _gasping, gagged, filthy monster doesn’t deserve air)_ , Sam made himself obey Rule Number One (though it was Rule Three, technically, but the first one Dean _named_ a Rule), and look Dean in the eye.  Dean looked tired and sad, but the hands on Sam’s arms stayed slow and even and didn’t let go. “You’re doing real good, I promise.  Nothing’s gonna happen.  We’ll have dinner, take it easy tonight, and then get some shut-eye. You got nothing to worry about.”  
  
Sam nodded, mechanically. He wanted to answer Dean, tell him he was listening and Dean’s words weren’t wasted, he would always do what Dean said to the best of his ability (he was a good monster, really, he wanted to be), but he didn’t trust his voice to say the words without making Dean even more upset.  
  
Then Hunter Singer yelled from outdoors, “Could you grab me some plates?” and Sam jumped, even with Dean’s hands on him. He squeezed his eyes shut and tilted his head back, pulling in deep breaths.  
  
Dean sighed and squeezed his forearms once.  “I’ll be right back.”  
  
Sam was glad Dean hadn’t asked him to bring them out, even if it should have been him.  He’d caught one glimpse of the hunter stoking red coals with a long metal skewer and the sight had been familiar enough to stop his breath.  He didn’t want to go outside. He could only hope he’d be able to eat whatever he was given.  
  
Hunter Singer and Dean came in a minute later, carrying plates of charred meat, round brown potatoes, and corn on the cob, the last of which Sam recognized from pictures.  He stood uncertainly near the kitchen wall until Dean said, “Go ahead and take a seat, Sam.”  
  
The three chairs at the table were the only ones in the room.  Sam couldn’t pretend he didn’t know what Dean meant. Hoping no one noticed his hand trembling, Sam drew out the closest chair and slowly, stiffly sat down.    
  
Dean crouched at the fridge, pushing around bottles.  “Don’t you got any A1 or 57 sauce? _Anything_ other than that Worcestershire crap, Bobby?”  
  
“What I got is what I got,” Hunter Singer answered shortly.  He rinsed his hands at the sink, came back and dropped heavily into another chair.  
  
Sam bolted, throwing himself backwards and nearly knocking his seat over.  He didn’t stop until his back found the wall, and then he stood there, shaking, unable to stop, eyes fixed on his hands.  He couldn’t stop anything.  He knew he wasn’t making Dean happy, disappointing him even when all Dean had asked from him was to behave just a little like a real. Yet Sam couldn’t control his own body, the stifling panic threatening to close his throat and that had made his body spasm as if he had just been touched with a cattle prod.   _Monsters do not sit with reals._  
  
The room was dead silent.   Not a sound except Sam’s own breathing and heartbeat, pulsing loud in his ears.  He shut his eyes as despair took him; that was it, surely.  Dean couldn’t overlook this demonstration of weakness and insubordination in front of another hunter.  
  
Dean’s footsteps crossed the kitchen and stopped in front of him.  Sam hadn’t apologized yet today, but he couldn’t even open his mouth to try to work his throat.  He didn’t deserve to beg.  
  
Then one of Dean’s hands closed over his, as gently as before, while his other warm hand settled on the back of Sam’s neck.  “Hey,” Dean said, his voice pitched as low and soothing as when it was just the two of them and Sam couldn’t untangle himself from nightmares and so many other hands on him.  “Hey, it’s all right.  You’re doing just fine.  Just you, me, and Bobby, and the only thing we’re gonna do is sit down for some dinner, okay?  That’s all that’s going on.  If you can’t eat, that’s okay too, we’ll wrap it up for later.  Can you come sit by me, Sam?”  
  
Sam blew out his breath, slowly.  He didn’t know how Dean’s touch and voice made it easier to breathe, but they did, and he could focus on Dean’s directions instead of his horrible, unpardonable behavior.  He nodded, still unable to raise his head, and Dean squeezed the back of his neck.  
  
“Good,” he said, and incredibly he _did_ sound glad, relieved.  “Good, that’s good.  We’re all right.”  He led Sam back to the table and moved Sam’s chair closer to his own, never lifting his hand from Sam’s neck, but Sam’s stupid feet still balked in front of his chair.  Yet somehow Dean understood without rage, without pain, without recrimination.  “You okay with Sam joining us, Bobby?”  
  
“Yeah,” Hunter Singer said.  His tone was unnervingly flat, but he didn’t hesitate. “That’s just fine with me.”  
  
At last, Sam could force himself to sit.  The first few seconds he remained frozen and rigid as the wood pressed against his back.  Dean’s hand slipped from his neck, but his knee bumped against Sam’s, and Sam focused on that and not his racing heart, nor the brown eyes watching him.  Silverware clinked, voices rumbled quietly (no questions, no threats, no orders), and slowly Sam forced his muscles to unlock.  He breathed, flexing his fingers, and Dean passed him a small steak, half a corn on the cob, and a potato.    
  
He was expected to eat.  That was not hard in the least, compared to sitting down.  He picked up the fork and knife carefully and used them to cut apart the food on his plate.  He had mastered those real skills, at least. His countless failures today made it more and more clear he would never pass in any other way, butat least he wouldn’t disgust Dean now by eating like a freak.  
  
He had lost all control over Rule One, and he hoped Dean would punish him later.  Punish him how a hunter should, until the white-hot pain blotted out failure, shame, and fear, and he felt nothing but the hard unmerciful floor beneath him, until he’d been reduced to nothing but the essential truths of what he was, where he belonged, and what he deserved.  He shouldn’t have forgotten.  It had been disastrous stupidity to ever put it aside.  
  
For now, while he couldn’t meet Dean’s eyes, he could watch Dean’s hands without being caught, so he knew to lift the corn with his hands, bite down to the stalk.  He didn’t dare look as far as Hunter Singer’s plate.  The idea of catching sight of his face, seeing the contempt and disgust there, was as unendurable as the thought of looking the Director in the face.  
  
He wasn’t hungry at all.  If he had thought about his stomach, he’d have said it was twisted into some unrecognizable shape that was not equipped for the challenge of _food_ , but not eating wasn’t an option. Seizing any opportunity to eat was too ingrained a survival instinct, and it overrode any other physical condition, no matter how sick or sore or exhausted the monster was, or what kind of food was available.  
  
So he cleaned his plate, stopping once to pour a small amount of dark brown sauce onto his plate from the bottle that Dean nudged toward him, and scooped it up with his neat bites of meat. No one spoke to him through the meal, and Sam’s attention was too wholeheartedly focused on managing the food to listen to a conversation not intended for him. Dean’s knees bumped steadily against his—once or twice a minute, though Sam didn’t think Dean would want him counting—and occasionally rested his arm over the back of Sam’s chair to touch his fingertips to Sam’s shoulder. Sam was indescribably grateful for those touches: the moment of contact temporarily washed out the panic, the fear, the bitter thoughts, and left him nothing but the relief that Dean still touched him kindly, even in front of Hunter Singer.  
  
Like Dean, he left only the bare cob of corn and the steak bones. He assumed the meal had been very good, but he hadn’t tasted any of it.  
  
Dean cleared his throat and pushed his chair back.  “Me and Sam’ve got the dishes, Bobby.”  
  
The Director had said it differently, but Sam understood the suggestion under the words. When Dean grabbed the big serving dishes, Sam took both their plates and followed. After Dean pulled out the trash can, Sam scraped in the leftovers and then took the sponge Dean passed him. This was better.  Small, simple tasks he could focus on individually, and cleaning was a familiar, safe activity for a freak.  
  
Sam almost wished that Dean would just leave the dishes with him. The way Dean was washing them—water barely hot enough to feel and only a tiny amount of bland detergent—couldn’t possibly sterilize enough for Hunter Singer. After all, _Sam_ , a freak, had been eating off one of those plates.  
  
If Dean went back to drink or talk or whatever he wanted to do with Hunter Singer—talk about Sam, probably, and Sam understood that, it was good for them to make sure Sam wasn’t doing anything wrong, wasn’t hurting Dean without noticing it—then Sam could crank the water hot enough to raise blisters on his hands, and this mess he’d brought to Hunter Singer’s home just by _being_ would be cleared up. He could pretend, at least for a few days, that he was a _useful_ monster.  
  
The hunter’s chair scraped across the floor, and Sam’s whole body stiffened from his shoulders down, hands freezing in the act of drying a plate.  Dean paused in his washing too, fingers twitching once as though he would touch Sam, but he didn’t.  
  
“Here, Dean,” Hunter Singer said, and Dean turned slightly, a moment later setting the third plate and glass in Sam’s side of the sink.  Hunter Singer’s heavy footsteps moved out of the kitchen, and Sam realized he should breathe again.  There was no reason for his hands to be shaking. Dean was right beside him.  
  
“You’re doing fine,” Dean said, but it didn’t sound like even Dean believed it anymore.  
  
When they finished, Sam followed Dean to the living room, where Hunter Singer sat behind his desk with a glass of amber liquid.  He looked up as they approached.  
  
“Hey, you boys look pretty beat,” he said. “I only got the one guest room, but one of you want to bed down on the couch?”  
  
"Nah, I’m gonna move us into the guest room, we’ll both crash out later.” Sam saw tension stiffen Dean’s shoulders, had to shuffle backward to maintain a proper distance when Dean shifted his weight. “I mean, if that’s cool with you, it’s just a lot more...the bed’s better, and it’s big, you know, and nothing’s gonna...we’re good, but thanks, Bobby.”  
  
Hunter Singer narrowed his eyes and Sam dropped his own quickly, wishing equally that sharing the room wouldn’t be a problem and that Dean had just let him sleep in the car. “All right.  I’ve got some notes to finish up, so why don’t you show the kid around, Dean?  You know where the TV and DVD stash are, if you want to watch something.”  
  
“Uh, thanks, but I think we’re good.  Might bring some books in from the car.”  
  
Hunter Singer’s eyebrows went up. “You’ve traded in your DVDs for literature?”  
  
“Nah, not for me.  They’re Sam’s.”  
  
There was a distant ringing in his ears, and Sam tried to focus on that instead of the dizzy feeling that Dean had buried his fist in his gut. How could he just _give away_ something so important? The books weren’t Sam’s, nothing _belonged_ to the freak, but now Hunter Singer knew something Sam cared about, something Dean had been kind enough to give him, and soon, much sooner than Sam had thought, that gift would be taken away.  
  
But Dean was still talking, his jaunty tone familiar from when things were so close to falling apart but he refused to let Sam hit the ground.  “Or we might just get a deck of cards.  Sam beats me at poker all the time, we could play a game.”  
  
“We’ll see.” Hunter Singer’s tone was guarded. Sam closed his eyes, hoping the floor would hold steady under his feet if he couldn’t see the room.  “Maybe once I get a working translation out of these texts.”  
  
Dean grinned. “Feudal Japanese?”  
  
Hunter Singer snorted. “No, it’s Greek.”  
  
“You know it’s all—“  
  
“Don’t strain your brain, idjit. Don’t you have tours to give and bags to carry?”  
  
“Sure do,” Dean agreed cheerfully. Then he glanced at Sam, and the worry returned like a noose slipping over Dean’s neck. “Come on, Sam.”  
  
They got their duffels from the Impala (though Dean left his weapons in the car), and Dean nodded toward Sam’s books, so he carefully picked two he’d read already (he hadn’t had time to memorize them, but then again, he hadn’t known he’d lose them so soon), and clutched them to his chest, his duffel slung over one arm. This was the first time Dean was presenting him to someone, and Sam was disappointing him. He was a good monster, and he was under control, and he didn’t _want_ to do anything wrong, but he did again and again, and he couldn’t even apologize any more, his tongue tied back, because just being in Hunter Singer’s home was the most effective gag he’d ever choked on.  
  
And what would be the point? Dean didn’t want to hear it, Hunter Singer hadn’t asked for it, and he shouldn’t be such a stupid monster as to believe he had a place other than in the corner, on his knees, waiting for instructions.  
  
He wanted that. He wanted to be out of the way (forgotten, ignored, _safe_ ) so badly that at times the desire to kneel seared almost like a physical pain. But then Dean would be _sad_ , and Hunter Singer would look at him with that same blank stare as though he had yet to figure Sam out, and he _could not do it,_ not if he really wanted to be the quiet, obedient monster he had been trained to be.  
  
Dean hesitated before the porch steps, turning to Sam. He lifted his hand briefly, but dropped it before touching him. “You doing okay?"  
  
Sam nodded quickly, and then, with a supreme effort, pulled his head up to look into Dean's face. He could be brave enough to look at Dean and force his mouth into a smile, even though he didn’t think he’d done a very good job.  
  
The open worry and concern in Dean's face undid him, and he had to drop his eyes again. He couldn’t see Dean’s face and know Dean _cared_ and still reduce the world to the crystal clear lines of obedience and worthlessness that he needed to survive what was coming. He couldn’t do that to Dean or himself.  
  
"Sam," Dean said, his voice low and raw in a way Sam hadn't heard often before.  Then Dean blew out his breath. "You're gonna be fine. Really.  We'll take it easy tonight, and it'll...it'll get better."  
  
Sam nodded again because a response was expected, and they turned once more to re-enter the hunter's house.  
  
~*~  
  
When Dean stepped into the living room after tucking Sam into the bedroom with a book, Bobby held out a glass one-quarter full of whiskey. "So, tell me how this is better."  
  
Dean sighed explosively, tension draining out of him for the first time since they arrived, and took the glass. "It's not. It's not fucking better than anything. God, he hasn't been like this since—the first week. I don't know what the hell happened, he was doing so good just the other day, you wouldn't have fucking recognized him. He was smiling and _looking_ at people, _talking_ to them...and then we get here and….sue me, Bobby, I didn’t know being here would mess him up this bad."  
  
“Really,” Bobby said flatly.  “You didn't get the teeniest hint before you rolled in here. ‘Cause I seem to remember a certain phone call…”  
  
Dean made a wild gesture with his free hand, knuckles of the other white around his glass. "That was one issue, and I thought we had it _handled_ , and then we’re here and he’s flinching at tables and not looking at anything and I thought he was…how long should I have waited?  It _seemed_ like he was ready!"  
  
"Yeah?  And now?"  
  
Dean swallowed, and his defiance cracked like a burning ghost.  “Are you saying we shouldn't've come?"  
  
"No, no," Bobby said quickly.  "I'm glad you did. Always good to see your ugly mug and…I wanted to see Sam.”  
  
"It hasn't been this bad," Dean said again, looking and sounding younger without the usual easy arrogance in his voice. He started to take another drink and seemed surprised his glass was empty.  
  
"I believe you."  Bobby refilled his own glass and Dean's.  "So tell me what it has been like."  
  
~  
  
Dean sure as hell hadn’t planned to treat Bobby like his own personal shrink, but the last few months  rushed out anyway, messy and jumbled, good times and fuck-ups weaving together into something that came nowhere close to what he and Sam had together. He certainly didn’t spill everything—just barely caught himself before talking about that first nightmarish night, though Bobby no doubt noticed when he abruptly changed directions—but hopefully enough to show him that Sam _had_ been better—not _healthy_ by any means, but not this fucking awful flinching and paralyzing terror.  
  
Bobby let Dean talk, leaning back in his chair, occasionally moving to refill a glass or nod agreement. He grunted, “Good” when Dean mentioned how much of a goddamn lifesaver Bobby’s book had been, but otherwise gave nothing away.  
  
“So we got to the coast, and he—just seemed like a major fucking breakthrough.” That might have been the worst subject change ever, but Dean sure as hell wasn’t telling Bobby about the kisses.  Some things were his and Sam’s private business.  “You wouldn’t have recognized him, compared to now.  And then we were weaving northwest when you called, and I asked Sam if he’d mind swinging up to meet you, and he _said_ he wouldn’t.”  
  
Bobby snorted.  “And that surprised you?  How often does he tell you no, idjit?”  
  
“All the damn time,” Dean said, ignoring a hot flash of guilt.   _But mostly when he thinks that’s what I want to hear_.  
  
Bobby had a way of looking at a man that came nowhere near letting him off the hook. Dean shifted and cleared his throat. “We work a lot on...boundaries.”  
  
Bobby’s eyebrows shot up.  “That so?”  
  
“Yeah.”  Dean waved his hand in a vague gesture.  “Making sure he tells me when he doesn’t like something, or isn’t ready for it yet.”  
  
“Uh-huh.” Seriously, Bobby’s eyes could drill through solid steel. “Not that I ever wanted to chat with you about the birds and bees, but do those boundaries cover what goes on when you share a bed?”  
  
Dean was not drunk enough for this conversation.  Or even to pretend it was the alcohol making his face flush.  “We got a PG rule.  One of the first ones I made.”  And he was not going to think about _why_ he’d made it, pressing on instead with the goddamn truth. “It's just, Sammy, he's—he needs me close by.  It helps him.  And he doesn't—sleep that well, anyway, so it's better if...I'm there, when he wakes up."  
  
Bobby huffed and raised his glass to his lips. “Well, at least I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”  
  
Dean focused on emptying his glass in two more swallows, because it wasn’t like he needed reminding that wanting (thinking, dreaming) to get it on with a scared, traumatized, _underage_ kid was all kinds of fucked up.  He _knew_ , dammit.    
  
“So, you got a lot of rules for him?”  
  
Dean shrugged one shoulder. “Not that many.  Just to help us both get by.  And I _told_ him, y’know —” he waved his hand, “that nothin’, nothin’ was gonna _happen_ to him if he broke ‘em.”  
  
They drank in silence for a minute, the silence stretching out until Dean had no idea what Bobby thought of him.  
  
“That’s a start,” Bobby said eventually.  “But you gotta remember you’re goin’ against a lifetime of getting beaten within an inch of his life if he so much as blinked wrong.”  
  
Dean rubbed his forehead with both hands.  “You think I forget that for a goddamn minute?”  
  
“No. No, I guess you wouldn’t.”  
  
Nodding, Dean reached to refill his glass, but Bobby pulled the bottle out of reach.  "I think you've had enough. You’ve got that kid to go back to, and I'm pretty sure he ain't asleep yet."  
  
"Shit, you're right." Dean looked up the stairs and hoped Bobby couldn’t read the apprehension on his face. Given Bobby’s expression, he decided not to be _that_ hopeful. “I’d better go.”  Dean stood, hesitating a moment at the table.  “I know today was rough,” he said, looking Bobby in the eye. “But it’s hardest when he’s adjusting to somewhere new.  Tomorrow’ll be better.”  
  
“Hope so.” Bobby waved him toward the doorway.  “Go to bed, idjit.”  
  
~*~  
  
Sam had honestly thought his fear would get better. Dean had brought him to plenty of places that had been frightening at first (terrifying, overwhelming, _Dean don’t let him hurt me I’m sorry I’m sorry_ ) but he had always been able to force himself through it, and what he had been scared of had turned out to be not so terrifying after all (except for places Dean had to drag him out of, places he had promised never to bring Sam again even though Dean didn’t have to make promises to a monster like him).  
  
It should have gone away, this fear that he would mess up ( _still just a fucked-up freak_ ) or that Hunter Singer would tell Dean that Sam should be on his knees, ass in the air, that Dean should thrash him every night because that’s what a freak deserved. Nothing had gone wrong the entire afternoon—even dinner had been a near miss. Hunter Singer had done nothing worse than look at him like he might break, and at Dean like he didn’t know how Dean still had the energy to smile after dealing with Sam day in and day out. And the entire time, Sam had thought the fear would ease.  
  
But it hadn’t. Every time he drew a breath, he could taste charred flesh, felt screams shivering down his skin. Hunter Singer had never hurt him—not when he’d walked into the interrogation room, never since they arrived—but Sam couldn’t shake the feeling that the hunter was biding his time. Now that he had seen Sam, knew what a piece of shit monster he was, he would take Dean aside—gently, calmly, one hand reassuringly on his shoulder, in that gruff voice that was all warmth when he talked to Dean—and tell him what Sam deserved.  
  
All Sam could do now was curl in the cold guest bed Dean had promised they would share, waiting for Dean to drag him out and beat him bloody over the tub in the bathroom, somewhere Hunter Singer wouldn’t see the evidence of a freak’s blood, only the marks on his skin. Dean’s hands would be steady on the belt or the whip, eyes hollow because he didn’t want to be there, striping Sam’s skin with pain, but had to because Hunter Singer knew how Sam was _wrong_ and twisted and that Dean had to beat him right _._  
  
When the door opened, hours later, Sam couldn’t stop himself from flinching, legs curling tighter to his chest, his nightmares coming true in the hesitant shadow of Dean in the doorway. But instead of reaching down to yank Sam out of bed, Dean changed slowly into fresh boxers and an undershirt and slid onto the bed behind him. He ran his hands down Sam’s arms, coaxing him to relax his legs, every movement smooth and soothing. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, I’m here. Shhhh, you’re all right.”  
  
Sam hadn’t known he was shivering until Dean touched him. Part of him wanted to beg Dean to take them away, to forgive him when Sam was such a needy, broken monster, he wanted to be strong and good and obedient for Dean but he couldn’t couldn’t couldn’t…  
  
Dean just pulled him tighter and put his lips against the back of Sam’s neck while Sam did his best to force himself still, to relax into Dean’s embrace. For the moment, at least, he was as safe as a monster could be without being dead.  
  
When Dean stirred the next morning, Sam moved away from him regretfully. He hadn’t slept, exactly, but there had been some measure of peace in listening to Dean’s even breathing. Yet even that thin relief was vanishing fast, the sharp wrench in his gut just the harbinger of panic’s return.  
  
Dean smiled at him as he opened his eyes. “Morning, Sam.”  
  
Sam smiled back, hoping Dean couldn’t see through his tiredness to the terror beneath. “Good morning, Dean.” And then because Dean looked like he was going to ask something more—maybe how he had slept or if he was going to be okay, and Sam couldn’t answer those right now without lying or making Dean unhappy—Sam slowly pulled away and sat up.  
  
Dean didn’t seem inclined to talk, either; he just got up on his side of the bed and pulled on a change of clothes. Sam noted absently that they would have to do laundry again when they left, and then clamped down on his dread— _when would they leave? Could he be good that long?_ —to follow Dean back downstairs as calmly as he was able.  
  
Hunter Singer stood in front of the kitchen stove. The sound of fat sizzling in the cast iron pans made Sam twitch, his muscles tensing and stomach curling worse.  
  
“Morning,” Dean called. Hunter Singer grunted in response.  
  
“Go ahead and take a seat, boys, eggs and bacon are almost done.”  
  
Dean’s hand on Sam’s shoulder guided him to the same chair he had had last night. Sam sat obediently, willing his heart rate down.  
  
“Need an extra hand with anything?” Dean asked.  
  
“I’ve got it under control, but you can go ahead and pour the coffee.”  
  
A minute later, Dean set a glass of milk and a small plate of eggs, bacon, and toast before Sam, then sat down himself with another plate and mug of coffee.  Sam glanced up for some sort of affirmation that he should eat, and saw Hunter Singer turning toward the table. Sam hastily dropped his eyes to his plate, but it was hard to stare at the good, _real_ food without feeling nauseated.  He wasn’t in the same blind panic as the night before, and now that he consciously faced the idea of eating ( _taking_ food like he deserved it, like he had any right), he couldn’t go through with it.  He knew, intellectually, that Dean had given him this food and therefore he was allowed to eat, but the thought of taking one more step outside his place (after wearing real clothes, sitting in a hunter’s chair at the same table as the hunter) knotted his stomach tighter and closed his throat.  He _couldn’t_ eat.  
  
“Hey, Dean.” Hunter Singer’s voice was loud in the uneasy silence. Sam almost dropped the butterknife he was using to divide his eggs into smaller and smaller pieces. “You remember that Buick I got last time you were here?”  
  
Dean looked up, interested, a sliver of bacon swinging from his mouth. “The ‘70 with the ghetto rust job and the big-ass valves?”  
  
“Yeah, I got a carburetor that fit her, but the damn thing’s still coughing like an eighty-year-old asthmatic smoker. Think you could take a look, figure out why it hates me?”  
  
“Yeah, sure, though I doubt I can tell you anything you don’t already know. Didn’t you drive one of those? I mean, after you wore out that Model-T.”  
  
Hunter Singer feigned cuffing Dean on the back of the head. “Watch it, idjit, I’m still young enough to beat the tar out of you.”  
  
Sam stiffened in his chair, his body a tense line against the old wood, his eyes snapping up to this sudden threat. _No you won’t_. If Hunter Singer tried, Sam would knock him to the floor. Sam was a monster, Hunter Singer could do anything he liked to him, but Sam wouldn’t let him lay one finger on Dean.  
  
With the adrenaline surging in his veins (ready to move and counter any threat, action, or attack, just like in camp when another monster had gotten too close), it took him a long second to realize the men had noticed his reaction.  
  
Dean’s expression was somewhere between surprise, worry, and confusion, and his right hand moved closer toward Sam across the table. Sam felt his hand reach back automatically, wanting that pressure, that reassurance, before he caught himself because Hunter Singer was watching too.  
  
Hunter Singer eyed Sam with the same mix of wariness and shrewd caution he had the first time Sam walked into his house. Sam could still remember the taste of the root beer on his tongue, knowing there was more in it than soda (maybe a drug to keep a freak down, maybe a test he would never pass) just by the way the hunter had watched him for the slightest hesitation.  
  
Sam ducked his head and tried to breathe.  A new tension, almost danger, hung in the air, like days the Director was displeased with personnel performance and the guards were looking to punish anyone who gave them an excuse.  
  
The moment stretched (a chain from collar to interrogation room wall, holding him still, braced for the pain) until Hunter Singer cleared his throat and reached for his orange juice. Sam cringed, Dean shook his head (to clear it, or wishing he’d chosen a better monster), and Sam wished that he could be anywhere else.  
  
“Bobby...” Dean started, but Hunter Singer just shook his head.  
  
“It’s fine, Dean. Now, if you’re done eating the last of my bacon, you can get your sorry ass to work.”  
  
“Yeah, Bobby.” Dean rested his hand lightly on Sam’s shoulder when he stood. Only then could Sam snap to awareness— _trance_ seemed too deep, _frozen terror_ too extreme to describe what he had been in—and start to clear the dishes. He hesitated before reaching for Hunter Singer’s plate, but the man got up without even glancing at him and headed for his study.  
  
Somehow relieved, Sam picked up the plate, still shaking from the adrenaline.  
  
~  
  
Bobby tipped back in his desk chair and closed his eyes, keeping his hand off the handle of his blade by force of will more than anything else. He wondered if it was too early for a drink. Probably, dammit.  
  
Sleep hadn’t come easily last night. He’d tossed and turned, his waking moments plagued equally by the thought that someone was sneaking up the stairs and worry over how Dean and the kid seemed stitched together with hope and a prayer (except, you know, being a Winchester and a FREACS kid, probably not a prayer), while his dreams were haunted by the memory of that damn kid’s face twisted by an emptiness that went infinitely past pain. He’d been up early, figuring it was better to get ahead on the salvage yard’s taxes than toss and turn for might-have-beens and half-formed fears.  
  
When Dean and Sam came down for breakfast, they looked about as shitty as he felt. Dean had smiled with dark circles around his eyes, and Sam...well. Pale, silent, exhausted, the kid hadn’t even eaten this morning. Dean hadn’t asked what he wanted, just gave him a few spoonfuls of scrambled eggs and a piece of toast.  
  
The kid ate the toast, slowly, and did little more than push the eggs around on his plate. After half-a-dozen hours around the kid, Bobby could almost think of him as a victim, a civilian, and focus on bantering with Dean, eating his breakfast, and enjoying the morning.  
  
But when Sam snapped to attention in the blink of an eye (hands fisted and eyes locked on Bobby with the dark intensity of a vamp that knew he was carrying dead man’s blood, or a shifter he’d already nicked with silver), he got the distinct impression the kid would reach across the breakfast table to rip out his throat if he had to.  
  
Reaching for his glass took steely nerves and a white-knuckled grip on his knife beneath the table. If the kid went for him or Dean, Bobby wasn’t sure he could take him—it would all come down to what kind of freak the kid was, wouldn’t it?—but he’d be damned if he didn’t fight like hell in his own home.  
  
But instead of going for him (would have been a perfect time, while his arm was extended), the boy had _flinched_ , and Dean had reached for him, and Bobby had felt old, lost and not sure he wasn’t messing these boys up even more than they already were.  
  
It was reassuring, in some ways, to hear them working in the kitchen. Two sets of hands and voices meant that both those damaged boys were still alive and moving, holding it together, while he tried to figure out where he had gone wrong or right.  
  
But when Sam had tensed up at the table, looked ready to go for Bobby’s throat, for the first time Bobby had seen the monster—dangerous, violent, unpredictable—he had hoped he wouldn’t find in the kid.  
  
Bobby had never hesitated to put a monster down. But there was nothing about this situation that was so cut and dried. He had to tread as carefully as he would over a tomb of angry ghosts.  
  
Dean had a voice that carried straight through the walls of the old farm house. Bobby eavesdropped shamelessly. If Sam’s reaction was out of the ordinary, Dean would know better than anyone. And he knew Dean well enough to know if he were rattled.  
  
"You know Bobby wouldn't hurt either of us, right?”  
  
The sound of dishes shifting stopped. The water was still running, but Bobby could imagine the kid wasn’t even breathing. He felt about the same.  
  
When Sam responded, it was too low to hear, even through the thin walls.  
  
“I’m not angry, I just...Bobby didn’t mean that, okay? He’s not going to hurt you, he’s sure as hell not going to hurt me, and...”  
  
This time Sam’s voice was louder, though still timorous. “Did he b-before?”  
  
Bobby heard a plate set down, the rustle of fabric. This time even Dean’s voice was almost too low to hear.  
"He's never laid a hand on me, seriously.  He wouldn’t do that."  
  
It all clicked. The kid’s instant defensiveness. _What_ had caused the response. Bobby felt like a total jackas. The kid had been protecting _Dean_.  
  
Bobby let the rest of the conversation fade out. If he and Sam were going to survive a few hours together while Dean wandered away to pound on cars, he was going to have to find something for the kid to do. For both their sakes.  
  
By the time Sam and Dean came out of the kitchen, Bobby had set one of his more comfortable chairs by the window and found a couple volumes on eastern meditation that he thought might be useful to Sam, if not necessarily enjoyable.  
  
Sam looked calmer, less like he was going to shake apart (though he still looked that, poor damn kid) and Dean seemed to have things more or less under control. Bobby didn’t even glance at Dean’s hand wrapped around Sam’s shoulder. He might never stop listening at doorways like an old woman (it had saved his life far too many times), but he could give them this much privacy.  
  
Dean noticed the chair right away and gave Bobby a grateful smile. Bobby just nodded. Least he could do was not make it _worse_ for the kid.  
  
“See that car, Sam, the gorgeous yellow rustbucket?” Dean pointed out the window, other hand still resting on Sam’s shoulder. “I’m going to be working on that one. You’ll be able to see me about ninety-five percent of the time, when I’m not grabbing tools or digging around under her. You can sit right here and... breathe and stuff.”  
  
Sam nodded, shortly, eyes fixed somewhere between Dean’s feet and the windowsill.  
  
Bobby didn’t want to break up what they had between them, but he felt his presence shouldn’t be a complete surprise, either. When he cleared his throat, Dean jumped (and then looked embarrassed) and Sam’s head jerked slightly. “I’ve got some books you might enjoy, too.” Dean’s appreciative smile and Sam’s complete non-response (unless a further tightening of his shoulders counted) made him feel even more uncomfortable for all of them. “They may be a bit technical for your taste, but maybe you’ll get into them.”  
  
Bobby wished he could just _stop_ seeing how the kid’s hands clenched when he realized Bobby was talking to him, and how he kept his eyes on Dean’s shoes like he had something to hide, because that wasn’t helping.  
  
So Bobby handed Sam his short stack of non-research books (he considered most of his books to be work _and_ pleasure, with the exception of some of the more boring technical dictionaries) and then withdrew safely behind his desk where he could keep an eye on Sam and hopefully not scare the shit out of the kid.  Before Dean left, he whispered something in Sam’s ear and squeezed his arm. Sam never raised his eyes even parallel with Dean’s chest.  
  
It went better than Bobby expected, though he didn’t make any advances with the research, as he paid most of his attention (as surreptitiously as he could) to the boy across the room. He thought he caught occasional flickers of Sam’s eyes toward him as well, though whenever he did look, Sam’s eyes were locked on his book, or sometimes directed out the window to where Dean was puttering around with the car.  
  
By this point, answering the phone bank took hardly any thought at all, assuring law enforcement personnel and nervous widows that, yes, Officer Whatshisface was one of his best men and not at all associated with the ASC, they could rest assured. Of course he could fax over the paperwork, just gonna have to get that secretary back from her smoke break to get the file together. But today he was almost as twitchy as the kid, who jumped enough to scrape his chair across the floor when the phone rang. After the first conversation, when Bobby was rattled enough to forget that “Officer Aiden” was actually a woman, he pulled the phone around the corner, out of Sam’s sight if not his hearing, just to clear his own head.  
  
~  
  
Sam didn’t remember a single thing he’d read, which he thought (distantly, through the panic and hyperawareness of Hunter Singer’s every move) might be a bad sign. But when Dean came in from working on the car (“Purring like a kitten, Bobby, you just ain’t got the touch anymore”), he’d taken one look at Sam and helped him by the elbow out of the chair.  
  
“Bobby, I’m gonna show Sam the yard, you wanna come?”  
  
“Nah, you boys get outta my hair while I figure out what the hell this naga folio is talking about.”  
  
Dean had a smudge of grease over his cheek. Sam had a fleeting thought to wipe it away, but the urge died almost at once. Maybe once, a few days ago (as distant as another lifetime), that would have been permissible, but never on another hunter’s property.  
  
Walking past the battered husks of old cars, the gray sky stretching over his head, Dean’s hand in his, Sam realized how exhausted he was. How shaken and shaky, and how he did _not_ have a handle on this. He hadn’t been able to eat hardly anything that morning, and only away from the other hunter could he even start to feel hungry. Back in camp, he wouldn’t even have noticed, but in this strange new life Dean had given him, even that low level of hunger was a rarity. Another thing to treasure, another thing he could lose.  
  
The half-broken cars and the sound of Dean’s footfalls beside him were reassuring, unlike nearly everything about Hunter Singer’s house, from the smell (fried food and old books accented with gunpowder and herbs for anti-hex charms) to the sounds (floorboards creaking as the hunter moved around in the morning, pouring water in the coffee pot and swinging open the front door to pick up the paper). Sam wanted to hold onto this moment, this safety, forever in the same way that he never wanted to let go of Dean’s hand. Sam knew he was probably holding on far too tight, but he couldn’t let go, even when he willed his hand to release.  
  
Peace was a fleeting sensation. Sam felt the first cold rush of fear return when they crossed back over Hunter Singer’s threshold.  
  
When they got to the living room, Dean squeezed his hand and let go. Only now, when Dean had made it clear, would Sam’s hand release its hold. “Hey, I’m a hot mess. Mind if I wash up quick? Then maybe we can raid Bobby’s fridge, get a sandwich or a beer or something.”  
  
Nodding quickly, Sam folded his hands together tight.  He wasn’t a burden that would hold Dean back from anything he had to do.  Besides, Dean had left him for much longer periods. Sam could be brave enough to manage without him.  
  
Sam tried to breathe while Dean was gone, to focus simply on the oxygen moving in and out of his lungs, but it was dangerously hard.  
  
And then Hunter Singer walked into the living room.  
  
Sam felt his limbs stiffen, as though tied too long to the assembly pole, or frozen with liquid nitrogen. He had been alone in a room with Hunter Singer before, but it was completely different when he couldn’t see Dean. In this moment, there wasn’t even the illusion of Dean being within reach or sight if Sam needed him, and no buffer to stop the hunter from doing whatever he wanted with the freak in his living room.  
  
He must have flinched—hard to focus on the outside world with everything both too sharp and blurred at the same time—because Hunter Singer’s mouth tightened (not quite anger or displeasure, at least not yet, but similar to both, and please he didn’t do _anything_ ), and he moved to a chair as far from Sam as he could get without leaving the room. There was a book in his hand, and he fiddled with it over his knee, like he wanted to pretend Sam wasn’t there at all (how much better that would be, if Sam could just perfectly, obediently disappear), and Sam tried to stay very still and small.  
  
Eventually Hunter Singer sighed.  “Sit down, kid,” he said. His voice sounded tired, worn down. Sam wondered, as he dropped smoothly to his knees on the floor, how he had become so exhausted, or if this was another effect that Sam had; that he could, in such a short time, completely exhaust both Dean and this man who cared for Dean.  
  
When Sam had settled back on his heels—he had thought, briefly and belatedly, about a chair, but he couldn’t while Hunter Singer was sitting beside the fireplace and iron pokers, not when he didn’t _want_ to sully the hunter’s furniture with his filthy freak presence, and Dean wanted Sam to know what he wanted more often—he looked up, just to be ready for any kind of question Hunter Singer might give him, and realized his mistake. Or perhaps the hunter’s intentions, because his mouth was perfectly level with Hunter Singer’s crotch.  
  
The older hunter had never indicated he wanted Sam, that he thought Sam’s place was bent over the table for Dean or on his knees or begging to be fucked, but at the same time, he was a hunter. In Sam’s entire life, there had been only two hunters who’d shown no interest in hurting or fucking him, and both of those had been Winchesters. Just because Hunter Singer hadn’t indicated that was what he wanted didn’t mean that it was off the table. Sam was Dean’s, after all, and maybe Hunter Singer wouldn’t want to in front of Dean…  
  
But Dean was gone now, Dean wasn’t here, and this was perfectly set up. Sam was fast. Hunter Singer wouldn’t even need to hurt him to get off before Dean got back. Sam dropped his eyes, felt his back bowing in a smooth curve to the floor. It would be so easy to crawl to him now, open his fly with his hands or his teeth, swallow the man down like a good little whore. He could do it. He understood his place and Hunter Singer had to understand too, to be sitting waiting for him, watching Sam like he couldn’t understand why the little slut wasn’t doing his duty, why he wasn’t crawling for the hunter to fuck him right now and that was because Sam hadn’t been given an order ( _I don’t want to, please, Dean, I don’t want to_ ), he couldn’t touch a real without permission but the second Hunter Singer told him to crawl, he would, he knew his place because he was a good little freak.  
  
Sam was shaking, and he didn’t know when it had started or how he could stop it, just that suddenly he had a hand on the floor in front of him ( _the Director will have me whipped,_ he thought muzzily) and the arm connected to it was shaking. Or maybe his vision was shaking because the world seemed to be sliding sideways but the hunter was _still there_ and any second now he would be dragging Sam around and pulling down his pants and—  
  
“Kid? Dammit, kid, look at me, are you...shit, are you _breathing?_ Dean! Dean, get your ass in here!”  
  
The hunter’s hands were on him, trying to pull him off the floor, and Sam knew the pain was coming, he was already almost sobbing with it, and all he could think was _No, not Dean, don’t let Dean see, don’t make Dean watch_ and he couldn’t tell if he was actually begging, if he was actually being so stupid as to ask for what he needed ( _only Dean would actually give him that_ ), or if it was all that familiar silent scream in his head, so much worse, so much fucking worse, hard to control, impossible to hold back, not after months and months of _DeanDeanDeanDean_ even though this was his place, this was where he belonged—  
  
“Bobby, what the fuck happened?”  
  
And then Dean was there, prying off the hunter’s hands and pulling Sam’s unresisting body against his chest, holding him up. Sam clung to him, buried his face in Dean’s shirt and tried not to sob in front of Dean’s friend, in front of the hunter, because he had to be good, he had to show Hunter Singer that he could be good for Dean, that he wasn’t a useless burden, a liability, or a threat, though it just kept falling apart. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he sobbed, hoping nothing else came through, none of the things he’d done—for which he could never apologize, no matter how much he longed for Dean’s forgiveness and mercy—were tripping off his lips with the words. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“Shhh, shhh, Sam it’s okay, it’s okay, I’ve got you. God fucking dammit, Bobby, what happened!”  
  
“He just started fucking shaking and I—”  
  
“Did you do something that—no, fuck, sorry, this just happens sometimes, he... It’s not your fault, we’re okay, right, Sam? Come on, Sam, can you look at me?”  
  
Sam felt Dean’s hand on his face—he knew that hand, every callus—and let his face be turned up, forced himself to breathe and open his eyes. He hoped he wouldn’t see the other hunter when all he wanted to see was Dean, to know if Dean was angry, if this time Sam had fucked it up far too much by falling apart in a hunter’s home, this very important hunter who meant the world to Dean and how could one little monster even be allowed to mess that up?  
  
But it was just Dean’s face he saw, through the tears blurring his vision, and the relief was like the first cold blast of the shower after a bad interrogation, numbing the pain, washing away the filth, proof he would survive another day and a reason to want to.  
  
“Fuck, Sam.” Dean’s voice was breathless, panicked, angry, but his thumb brushing the damp skin beneath his eyes was gentle as Dean always was with him, careful, kind and so much more than Sam could ever deserve. “I’ve got you. Just keep breathing, okay?”  
  
Sam wanted to say, _Yes, always, for you_ or _Please just fuck me, Dean, before he does_ , but all he managed (and he was grateful he could do that much) was a small nod against Dean’s hand. That must have been enough, because Dean sighed and let him sag against his chest. Sam was still shaking, but now he could feel the exhaustion in it, the fact that he hadn’t eaten more than a few bites in nearly twenty-four hours, the strain of being so close to a real who knew exactly what he was and had the power to punish him for it.  
  
“Need anything? C’mon, Sam, you just keep breathing and we can...we can go walking again or I can get you to bed or....something, just talk to me, Sam.”  
  
Sam needed Dean to stay with him. He needed to stay where Dean could protect him and he needed to stop being so fucking afraid, and he needed to die before he hurt Dean or any other real, but Dean either couldn’t or wouldn’t help with those, not while he still thought that Sam was more than a worthless piece of shit. Not while he thought Sam could be _better_.  
  
“I’m-m-m hungry,” he said, words shaking. Dean couldn’t fix him, Dean couldn’t work a miracle like that, but Sam could give Dean something, show that he was trying as hard as he could.  
  
He felt more than saw Dean smile, as his eyes were closed again, all his attention focused on Dean’s heat and smell through the shirt, the sturdy pressure of Dean’s arms wrapping around him. He was grateful for that smile. It meant that maybe he had done something right today.  
  
“Yeah, we’ll get you something and then I’m going to get you upstairs.” Dean lifted his head, tightened his arms. “Hey, Bobby, could you get us some crackers or something?”  
  
Sam heard the other hunter get up, slowly. He must have sat down while the rush of blood in Sam’s head stopped him from hearing anything but Dean’s voice, feel anything but Dean’s hands. Hunter Singer walked slowly to the kitchen while Sam’s heart tried to speed up again, tried to panic him just because the hunter was _moving_ ,but it was so much harder to succumb to fear with Dean wrapped around him, telling him with words and touches that it was all right.  
  
“Just hang on, Sam.” Dean rocked him slightly and Sam held on tighter, afraid he would shatter if Dean let him go. “We’re going to get some food into you, get your blood sugar pumping a bit, ‘cause I sure as fuck don’t want you passing out if I can help it, because, man, I could probably lift you, but tucking you into bed’s gonna be a hell of a lot harder if I have to carry you up those damn stairs first. I mean, not that you weigh practically anything still, you’re still so damn thin, but with our luck I’d pull a muscle in my fucking spine and then you’d have to carry _me_ and Bobby would laugh his ass off.”  
  
“Stay w-with me.” Sam didn’t know when he’d started being this brave, this stupid, asking for things Dean shouldn’t have to give him, things he wanted with all his heart. Dean’s hands stroking his back stuttered for a second, and then picked up the rhythm again.  
  
“Yeah, I can do that. It’s okay, Sam. Unless you want it, I’m never gonna leave.”  
  
~*~  
  
Bobby took a seat in the chair against the far wall, unnoticed by the boys kneeling on the floor.  Sam was still shaking as though he’d just been exorcised, clutching Dean’s shirt with both hands, eyes tightly shut, forehead pressed to Dean’s chest. Dean’s attention was completely on Sam, soothing him with hands and voice in a way Bobby had never known Dean Winchester was capable of.  Where the hell had he learned that?  Certainly never from John, with his tough love and buck-up orders. In contrast to his father, Dean wouldn’t have noticed now if a herd of rhinoceroses charged in and settled down for a tea party.  
  
This wasn’t the first time Dean had done this.  
  
Bobby watched, trying to hold onto that detached, observant part of himself that kept him alive when other hunters were throwing up and promptly getting disemboweled for their trouble.  The cool head and indifference that always got him _through_ the threat before breaking down. Better that than thinking of the bile in the back of this throat and the itch in his fingers for the nearest bottle of Jack.  
  
Being around Sam reminded Bobby why he had never wanted kids.  
  
Everything he didn’t want, from his worst personal fear to his biggest regret, was embodied in maybe a hundred pounds of malnourished, traumatized teenager, shaking in Dean’s arms. The kid who was so damn afraid of him, expecting to be slugged across the face at any second, just for being in the way. He didn’t just think that Bobby was _capable_ of that violence, he expected it with every breath, glance, and flinch because that had been his _life_. Bobby could remember that fear and helplessness too fucking well, and Sam had never thought he could have anything else.  
  
It was all too fucking close to home. And whatever effect the kid was having on him, Bobby reckoned the one he had on Sam was just as bad, or worse.  
  
Dean got Sam to eat a few crackers (fingertips brushing Sam’s lips to open them, a steady stream of borderline nonsense coming out of his mouth like the words were all that kept him chewing), and the kid stopped shaking, though he didn’t move out of his tremulous, hunched posture. Then Dean said, “Bedtime,” briskly, and he helped Sam up the stairs, past windows lit with sunshine breaking through the clouds, and never stopped prattling on to him in that painfully bright, light-hearted tone.  
  
Bobby counted to ten after they disappeared up the stairs, then got up for the whiskey.  
  
~*~  
  
After his own quick dinner (leftovers in the fridge; Bobby left a note on the counter that he’d been called into town for a second opinion on a crime scene), Dean returned to sit with Sam, hunched next to him in a chair by the side of the bed, until he fell asleep.  
  
When they’d reached the bedroom—thank fuck, Sam had eaten some crackers at least and hadn’t seemed like he was going to pass out or have another panic attack—Sam had insisted that Dean could go back downstairs, that he would be fine, Dean didn’t have to worry about him. Dean, with the sharp edge of panic still rasping in his throat, his heart beating far too fast from overflow emotions, very nearly told him to shut the fuck up, that Dean wasn’t going fucking anywhere, because this was the first time that Sam had scared the shit out of him in weeks, and he wasn’t stepping away until they both knew that Sam was fucking _safe._  
  
He’d gone to the fucking bathroom. Four fucking minutes, five at tops, and when he’d heard the alarm in Bobby’s voice, he almost broke down the fucking wall to get _back_ because he knew it was going wrong again.  
  
He came back to find Sam shaking apart on the floor, Jesus, like a junkie with the shakes, or an epileptic, or someone ridden by a fucking ghost, and he had thought his heart was going to beat out of his chest from how hard that panic hit him.  
  
It had been so long since their last really bad attack. Yeah, Sam got spooked sometimes, locked up, couldn’t go in some places, had to leave restaurants if they got crowded, but he hadn’t had anything that left him shaking and sobbing in weeks.  
  
One fucking day with a hunter Dean trusted, and that was blown all to hell.  
  
Dean stroked a hand through Sam’s hair while the kid fell asleep, and wished he could fix this, really and truly, not just put a band-aid on it or look away from what was happening. He’d thought maybe Sam was doing better—no, honestly, he’d hoped but he’d never really believed it, not with how Sam reacted around Bobby, reacted just when Dean _mentioned_ his name—because he hadn’t had nightmares last night, but now he suspected Sam just hadn’t slept. He didn’t have nightmares when he was awake, other than the panic attacks.  
  
“I’m s-sorry, Dean,” Sam whispered, eyes closed while Dean combed out his hair with his fingers and tried to think soothing thoughts. “S-so s-sorry. Didn’t w-want to...”  
  
“I know, Sam, it’s okay. I’ll stay with you for a bit.”  
  
“Tell him I’m s-sorry, I d-didn’t mean...” Sam jerked, face twisted, and Dean recognized a silent sob, pain struggling up and Sam giving it nowhere to go. For once, Dean gave in to what he wanted and pulled Sam up into his arms, pressing his mouth to Sam’s cheek. He didn’t move it from there, didn’t take anything that Sam wasn’t offering—and for once Dean’s body had gotten the memo that it _shouldn’t_ be fucking interested, better late than never, right?—but he wanted the contact. Something to assure Sam that he wasn’t alone. Because Dean sure as hell could use that kind of assurance about now, too. “He knows, Sam. It’s fine.”  
  
“You’ll t-talk to him? T-tell him I’m—”  
  
“Yeah, but not for a while. I’m with you right now.”  
  
“Y-you don’t h-have to. I’m not—”  
  
“Sam.” Dean had to stop and breathe. He was kind of afraid that Sam had been about to tell him how worthless he was again, and he couldn’t take that right now. “Just relax, okay? I’ll take care of it, I promise.”  
  
The sobbing only continued. “Y-you never break your p-promises.”  
  
Dean rocked him and stared at the wall. A picture hung of Bobby and his wife, smiling toward the camera, her arm resting in his. They looked happy.  
  
She’d died, just like Mom, and Bobby had started hunting just like Dean’s dad, and now Sam felt far too fragile in his arms to be something he could hold onto in the face of everything that had disappeared.  
  
When Sam was finally breathing slow and even and Dean could pretend that he was _resting_ , he dragged himself down the stairs. He had heard Bobby return half an hour ago, and he wasn’t sure what he would find. At least there hadn’t been any blood to clean up.  
  
What he found was about the most reassuring thing he _could_ find, given the circumstances. Bobby, a half-empty bottle of Jack, and two glasses waiting for him at the table.  
  
“How is he?” he asked, when Dean strode to the table.  
  
Dean downed half a glass before answering. “Not great, but...breathing.”  
  
Bobby refilled his glass without asking.  
  
They drank with silent intentness for about ten minutes, Dean grateful for a silence not filled with Sam’s soundless sobbing, until Bobby sighed, walked to the sink and filled his mug with water.  
  
Dean hoped that that wasn’t a sign that he was getting cut off from the whiskey. The world was blurring a little around the edges, but not nearly enough.  
  
Bobby sat. “That happen often?”  
  
Dean sagged into his chair. “No. I mean, yeah, it’s happened, but not for a while and it hasn’t been that bad since...we were doing okay, Bobby, seriously, I’m not lying to you, don’t think...I don’t even fucking know, but he was doing fucking _great—_ ”  
  
"Until you brought him to a hunter's home.”  
  
Dean swore. Low and under his breath as though Sammy could hear him, like he thought Bobby would care. “He’s been to _my_ home, Bobby, and he never flipped the fuck out and I don’t fucking know why he’s fucking falling apart, but _fuck fuck fuck.”_  
  
“Dean.” The hand clamping down on his arm helped shut his mouth, but didn’t stop the panic under his skin, the half despairing, half-burning feeling he got knowing that Sam was probably _still_ fucking shaking and Dean didn’t have the least foggiest clue how to deal with that. “You know that it’s different.”  
  
“Why? Fucking why. I mean, he knows you’re cool, you signed the papers, and I’ve talked about you and I _know_ you wouldn’t fucking hurt him.” _You better never fucking hurt him._ “And he’s still—”  
  
“Idjit, look at me.”  
  
Dean felt his head pulled up without his conscious control. That was the voice Bobby had used on his—on John, more than once, and on Dean when he was being a complete idiot kid, and on civilians when they had to listen or probably get their faces eaten by whatever monster was bumping around in the dark. So Dean looked, and almost wanted to cringe away from the sympathy and understanding on Bobby’s face. “You got him out. That would make you better for Sam even if you hadn’t been visiting him for ten damn years, and treating him like a _person_ , and you’ve got to know you’re probably one of the only people who ever did.”  
  
“And that’s so fucking wrong, Bobby, because Sam—”  
  
“I’m not saying it’s right, and I fucking agree that it’s wrong, but it is what it is and at this point you’ve got to look at what you’ve got to work with, and not at what you _want_ , and figure out what your options are. You saved that kid’s life, Dean, and I’m proud you did, but you gotta face the fact that you might not be able to _fix_ him.  That boy’s been screwed so hard in the noggin that no matter what you want for him, and what you do for him, he’s not going to change in a day or even a year. He may not...he may never be a normal kid, comfortable around people, or God knows what, because, let’s face it, there’s a lot of shit in his past he’s never gonna shake off. We ain’t had it easy, Dean, but that kid has had it a heck of a lot worse.”  
  
“I’ve seen his back, Bobby, it’s not like I don’t fucking know that.”  
  
“Yeah, well, sometimes you don’t act like it. You’ve got to keep that shit he went through in mind, and you have to figure out what the best thing you can do for him is, realistically speaking.” Bobby stopped, took a drink, and when he continued his words were slow, deliberate, like he was reading an unfamiliar incantation. “And I may not know much, but I know that being here ain’t doing him any favors.”  
  
Dean looked back up, halfway through picking up the bottle. “Bobby, what are you saying?”  
  
“You said he was better before you got here, and I can’t judge that because, plainly, he’s screwed in the head around me. I think you should go.”  
  
It was suddenly hard to keep his hand even pouring the whiskey. Thankfully there wasn’t a lot of whiskey in there to spill. “You’re kicking us out?” He hated how his voice squeaked at the end, how he sounded about five. But if Bobby was saying what he thought ( _get the hell out and don’t come back_ ), then Dean didn’t really know what he was going to do. First D—John, now Bobby and fuck, Dean didn’t have anyone else who would so much as let him crash on their couch, much less try to help. _No one._  
  
Bobby’s eyes were serious, worried; it was almost reassuring, even as Dean’s stomach dropped, that he looked as miserable and at the end of his rope as Dean felt.  
  
“I’m not saying go and don’t come back.  This ain’t even about you, or that kid shaking in my guest room. It’s been less than two days and you’re run ragged, my blood pressure feels like a pack of hellhounds’re chasing me, and he’s...well, this ain’t exactly a soothing environment for anyone.”  
  
“Don’t talk shit, Bobby, this is about the most soothing fucking place I’ve—” Dean cut himself off. Because, yeah, Bobby’s salvage yard was almost home to him, always one of the most reliable safehouses John had hit if a hunt went wrong and they needed to lick their wounds, but Sam hadn’t been there for that. Sam didn’t know the Bobby who had screamed his father out the door with a shotgun pointed at his head and had let him back the very next week when he had a concussion. He hadn’t known the Bobby who had played catch with him, told him that all women were crazy and all women were beautiful, and watered John’s whiskey when he went off the rails. All Sam knew, and all Sam could see, was the _hunter_ , and that fucking hurt but it was true.  
  
“This is the only place I can fucking trust,” he said instead.  “I ain’t got anywhere else.  You know that.”  
  
Bobby nodded, his face shadowed with an even mix of sympathy and fatigue. He hadn’t looked that tired when they’d driven into his yard yesterday. Dean reached for the bottle again and realized that it was empty and the clock on the mantle had slid them into the early morning. Bobby followed his gaze. “You want me to cut you off, or are we finishing another one?”  
  
The words shouldn’t have been a relief. Dean had watched enough TV and had enough guidance counselors drag him into their office after another fight and five-too-many unsigned report cards (he’d never gotten good at forging John’s signature, and there’d never been anyone else to do it for him) to know that an ideal role model wouldn’t offer to get wasted with him with a trauma victim crashed out upstairs, but that didn’t fucking matter. Bobby was _there_ , making the offer, when John would have told him to suck it up, and the ASC probably would have sent him more paperwork, and a civilian would have run like hell. And because Bobby was there, saying he could keep going as long as he wanted even though that was probably a bad fucking idea, that he could get drunk off his ass and crash on the couch away from Sam if that was what he wanted to do, Dean had the strength to not do it. For Sam, for Bobby, and for himself.  
  
“Nah,” he said, pushing away from the table. He swayed a bit, but the world wasn’t a complete blur. He could probably still shoot straight, and the stairs wouldn’t be any kinda fucking issue.  No way.  “If we’re heading out tomorrow, I better call it quits.”  
  
The shadow of a smile on Bobby’s face was enough. Not perfect, not the best, but enough. “Need help getting upstairs?”  
  
“Nah, I’m good.” Dean turned away, hoping absently that Sam really was asleep, but not betting on it, then turned back. “And Bobby, thanks for everything. And sorry.”  
  
Bobby shrugged. “Don’t apologize, son. You’ll come back.”  
  
“Yeah.” Dean let himself smile. He didn’t think it looked that good. “Sure.”  
  
He found their room and bed without too much trouble, only catching himself a few times before stumbling into the walls. Not much surprised to find Sam curled into the same ball of alert tension he’d been in last night, Dean tugged him close ( _Sammy likes being held, he said so, this is for him, not for you)_ so he could whisper in his ear.  “We’re leaving in the morning.”  
  
He wasn’t too drunk to feel Sam twist further in misery.  “But you w-w-wanted—to s-stay longer—”  
  
“Nah, Sam.  Just however long we wanted to stay, and this is it.”  He patted Sam’s arm.  “It’s gonna be okay.  Go to sleep.”  
  
~*~  
  
The alcohol let Dean sleep deeper than he had last night, though he woke up at what felt like a godawful early hour, bright sunlight beaming through the window and stabbing his throbbing head.  He groaned, lifting one hand to block most of the light, and caught sight of Sam lying still, head on the pillow beside him, watching.  
  
“Didja get any sleep, Sam?”  
  
“Yes, Dean.”  
  
Dean sighed, settling.  He wouldn’t ask how much.  
  
Dressing was more challenging than it had been since he’d dislocated his shoulder (and relocated it on his own) on a solo hunt, and he was more grateful than he could possibly say for how Sam handed him everything he was looking for, sometimes before he knew what it was.  Bags mostly packed, Dean clapped a hand on Sam’s shoulder and decided to leave it there as they went down the stairs.  
  
“Coffee, Bobby,” he groaned as he entered the kitchen, where Bobby sat at the table with his newspaper open.  “Strong as Virginia moonshine.”  
  
“On the burner where it always is,” Bobby grunted.  
  
Sam helped him pour a mug, and Dean squeezed his shoulder.  “You’re a lifesaver, Sam.  Got any cereal, Bobby?”  
  
“Just the kind you always complain about ‘cause it don’t clog your arteries with sugar.”  
  
“I’ll take it.” Dean waved vaguely toward the cabinets, and Sam took out the cereal box, bowls, and spoons, while Dean pulled the milk out of the fridge.  
  
“Have a seat,” Bobby said, and Dean smiled in relief.  
  
They sat down across from Bobby, and Dean leaned his knee against Sam’s.  The coffee helped his head more than the food, though he ate too, mostly to set a good example for Sam. The kid managed to swallow more than a couple bites this morning, and that was something to be grateful for.  
  
When he reached the bottom of the pot, he looked up at Bobby and tried his best for matter-of-fact nonchalance.  “So we’ll go throw our bags together, then roll on out of here.”  
  
“All right,” Bobby said, his tone impenetrable. He glanced up to meet Dean’s eyes.  “Stay in touch, ya hear?  Don’t be a stranger.  And you can always turn back if you need a place to crash.”  
  
“Thanks,” Dean said. He couldn’t get out much more than that, but he figured Bobby would know what it meant.  
  
When they came down with their bags, Bobby called to Dean from his study. Dean handed his bag and keys to Sam and gave him a smile.  
  
“Can you set us up in the Impala, Sam? I’ll be out in a sec.”  
  
Sam gave him a tight nod (still not meeting his eyes) and took both bags to the car, while Dean turned back to Bobby’s study.  
  
“Got one last piece of advice for ya,” Bobby said, looking him in the eye the way Sam might never again.  “If it were me, I’d go from here to Jim Murphy’s place in Minnesota. Practically next door.”  
  
Dean took two steps toward Bobby, one toward the door, hands closing into fists. “You’re telling me to take Sam to another hunter?   _That’s_ your best idea?”  
  
“Well, way I figure it, can’t get much worse, right? And Jim’s—not someone he’s met before.  He’s good with this sort of thing, a helluva lot better than me. Take a few days, unwind, get your kid breathing, and then give Jim a call. He’ll have advice, at least, when the best I can offer is whiskey.”  
  
“I’ll think about it.” At a moment when they were back at fucking square one and Dean didn’t know where to start, he couldn’t promise any more, but he appreciated the spirit of the offer. At least Bobby still cared. “Thanks again, Bobby.  For, y’know.  Letting us stay, and all.”  
  
“Yeah, well, I won’t say it was a picnic, but it’s not the worst trouble a Winchester’s given me.”  Bobby gripped his hand.  “Just remember what I said last night, all right?  About keeping realistic?”  
  
“Yeah, yeah.”  Dean was suddenly impatient to go. Just him and Sam in his baby with nothing but the open road beneath them, solitude the surest safeguard in the world, no one with leverage over them (seriously, who did the highway patrol think they were kidding?), and time to put together what had fallen apart. “Thanks again, Bobby,” he said. Once out the door, he all but leaped down the porch stairs like he had when he was a kid.  
  
Sam was already waiting in the passenger seat. Dean stopped for a quick wave to Bobby, leaning against the door frame, before getting in and swinging the door shut. As he started the engine and spun the car around the gravel drive, he became aware of the silence, how Sam was huddled against the passenger door, his body radiating misery in a way Dean hadn’t seen in weeks.  
  
He didn’t know what to say, how to apologize or explain, if he could or should.  He didn’t know where they stood after a setback (a colossal fuck-up, more like) like that.  Dean just turned the steering wheel toward the highway and hoped they’d find somewhere to lick their wounds.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy this chapter, everyone! We're going on hiatus for about a couple months to take a breather. Remember that you can find timestamps in this 'verse over in our Livejournal comm (freac_campDOTlivejournalDOTcom).

Bobby had given them very clear instructions. Almost too clear, like he thought if he didn’t lay out every little step—down to the Wendy’s at the second left-hand turn off the highway—that Dean wouldn’t get them there because it would be just too easy to drive the other way.  
He might not have been wrong.  
  
When they pulled up outside a quaint little house next to an even quainter church, Dean parked the Impala and couldn’t make a move for the door.  Sam was still huddled in the passenger seat, the same miserable shadow he’d been for most of the drive. At least he’d uncurled gradually starting about an hour from Bobby’s, when they’d turned north toward Blue Lake instead of east. Dean counted that as a win.  
  
“Well, this looks like the right place,” Dean started. “But I don’t know if we should—“  
  
The knock on his window almost made him go for his gun, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Sam stiffen, reaching for the handle on his door. But it was just Pastor Jim, his salt-and-pepper moustache and goatee framing his smile, with one hand resting on the roof.  
  
“Dean!  Good to see you again,” he said, as Dean cracked open the door.  
  
Dean let out a deep breath.  “I thought you knew better than to sneak up on a hunter, Pastor.” He had no fucking idea when Jim had walked up to the car—Dean wasn’t sure if his reflexes were that rusty, or Jim was just that good—but it was damn good to see another smiling face after the disaster at Bobby’s and another day with a withdrawn, flinching Sam.  
  
Pastor Jim backed up to let Dean get out of the car. “Well, I thought a hunter knew to check his surroundings better.”  
  
Jim’s handshake was firm and dry, just as Dean recalled. “How’d you know when we’d be here?”  
  
“I didn’t.  Bobby called yesterday to say you might be stopping by soon.” Jim’s mouth quirked. “Then when I heard this old girl’s engine, I figured who it was. There can’t be that many ’67 Impalas out there, unless John magically won another one in a card game.”  
  
Dean blinked. “You know my dad?”  
  
Pastor Jim hesitated, tucking his hand back in his pocket. “Knew him from before he married your mom, actually. Good man.”  
  
Dean tried to laugh. He was suddenly aware of Sam getting out of the car—thank God he was doing things on his own again, though he still looked like he was expecting to get decked—and wondered how much Pastor Jim would share John’s opinion of his kid, now that he was faced with the real thing and not the paperwork. “Fair warning, he may not say the same about me.”  
  
“We haven’t talked since he swiped my communion wine about ten years ago and I threw him through a window. Sends me hunts sometimes, but not really one for rebuilding bridges. ‘Good man’ and ‘stubborn bastard’ aren’t exactly antithetical in my book. Ah, and you must be Sam.”  
  
Dean felt his hackles rise.  Sam was standing steady at his side, but watching Jim like he wasn’t sure where to direct his eyes. His gaze flickered from shoulders, to shoes, _almost_ to the Pastor’s face, and over to Dean like he hoped Dean could give him some sign. Dean almost moved between them—this wasn’t Bobby, he didn’t give a crap about this guy, even though he’d come to Bobby’s once and signed the paperwork to get Sam out—but caught himself when he realized that what he had interpreted as an aggressive move on Jim’s part was him holding out his hand. Like he wanted Sam to shake it.  
  
Dean didn’t trust it. After the way their visit to Bobby’s had gone down in flames, he didn’t trust anything, but to judge from Pastor Jim’s face, there wasn’t a damn thing strange about offering his hand to a kid that had been labeled a freak and a monster. Dean saw nothing worse than compassion on the pastor’s face, and that only after Sam had flinched slightly from the outstretched hand.  Only after Dean wondered what the fuck the gesture hid, did he stop and do a double-take at himself for finding it so abnormal.  
  
Sam didn’t take the hand—no surprise there—just watched it, a little terrified, and moved closer to Dean. His hand made a tentative twitch in Dean’s direction, and then Sam gave up the where-should-I-look game and stared determinedly at his feet.  
  
After a couple beats, when Sam showed no sign of breaking down and taking his hand, Pastor Jim let it drop without any significant change in his expression.  
  
“You boys want to bring your bags in? I didn’t know when or if you’d be coming, but there’s stew on.”  With a quick inviting gesture of his head, he turned back toward the house, hands in the pockets of his jeans.  
  
Dean glanced at Sam, who looked back at him with the same fearful anxiety that had clung to him since they turned toward Bobby’s, the same clawing fear he’d worn like a second skin every fucking day for those first few weeks that Dean tried to forget. But the important thing _now_ was that he _could_ see Sam's eyes, Sam was holding onto him like an anchor in a storm instead of staring at his feet, and that was already a damn sight better than where'd they been at Bobby's.  
  
Dean offered him a tight smile. He couldn’t make any promises, because he didn't have a fucking clue how this was going to play out, and he had learned by now not to make any promises to Sam he wasn’t sure as hell he could keep. He nudged Sam's shoulder with his own as they hauled their duffel bags out of the trunk, hoping the contact was enough of a reminder of Dean's earlier vows ( _whatever goes down, we're in this together, I got your back, not leaving you for a second unless I know you'll be just as safe without me as you would be with me_ ).  They followed Pastor Jim into his house.  
  
"Not much to the tour," Jim called over his shoulder.  "Here we have the living room and half of the library" —a plain room with drab yet sturdy earth-toned furniture, and one wall of books— "and through there the kitchen and bathroom number one.  On the other side is my bedroom and study, which holds the other half of the library, at least of what I keep in the house. And up these stairs are the guest rooms where you boys can crash if you’re staying tonight."  
  
"We'll just need one of them," Dean said. He didn’t have the energy to spare worrying about Jim’s opinion, and didn't feel even the trace of apprehension he had telling Bobby, probably because Bobby was the sole member (besides Sam, naturally) of the Dean Winchester Gives a Flying Fuck About Your Opinion club. The most important thing was keeping Sam close at night, keeping him _safe_ , and letting him get a couple real hours of sleep.  
  
But when Jim turned back and hit him with a look of such fixed scrutiny, it stopped Dean in his tracks.  "The beds are just twins," he said, still looking hard at Dean, who lifted a shoulder in deliberately casual defiance.  
  
"We'll make it work."  
  
Jim didn't falter, eyes boring into Dean.  "I have a spare air mattress, too. Would that be all right with you, Sam?"  With no other warning, he turned his gaze to Sam.  
  
Sam twitch-jumped backwards, sliding toward Dean and twisting his hands together.  Dean felt defensive, rabbit-punched, and just as stunned as Sam looked: as far as he could recall, that was the first time anyone besides him had specifically asked Sam's permission or input.  
  
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to curl up with a bottle of Jack, scream, or punch Jim in the face for that and all that the question implied.  
  
Sam swallowed, eyes skittering along the floor.  "Yes," he whispered at last, barely audible.  "Th-that’s okay."  
  
“All right.”  Jim visibly settled himself and turned to continue climbing the stairs.  Dean hesitated, then squeezed Sam’s fingers before following.  
  
At the landing, Jim turned left and pushed open a wooden door.  “They’re both made-up, and there’s a bathroom connected between them. Take your pick.”  
  
The bed was as small as promised, though Dean still thought they could both fit, especially with how Sam could probably slip behind the headboard with no one noticing.  Then again, Dean was a big guy, and Sam would have to be at least halfway on top of him, which could cause a whole heap of problems easily avoided with a bigger bed or a couple beds close together.  This air mattress idea was sounding better and better, even aside from Jim’s obvious disapproval.  
  
“I’ll give you a minute to settle in,” Jim said.  “Just come down to the kitchen when you’re ready to see the rest.”  He disappeared down the stairs.  
  
Sam glanced at Dean, who blew out the breath he hadn’t known he was holding.  It was one thing when he crashed at Bobby’s—that had happened often enough since before kindergarten that he didn’t think twice about slinging his bag into a corner and rooting through cabinets until he found a spare tube of toothpaste or whatever.  But Jim’s guestroom—neatly made bed and orderly shelves with yet more books—was new territory for them both now. And, well...maybe that was a good thing. They were on the same page for once, and Dean was pretty sure he deserved at least a taste of Sam’s trepidation.  
  
“Just put it down anywhere, Sam.”  Dean dropped his bag against the wall, and Sam followed suit, laying his bag down (always more gently, as though the contents were glass instead of clothes) next to Dean’s.  
  
Dean stepped into the bathroom, just to give it a once-over (toilet, stand-up shower, sink, medicine cabinet with ibuprofen and Q-tips, not sure what else he expected) and turned around to find Sam by the door frame.  He caught Sam’s hands just as he was about to retreat, his eyes hovering uncertainly around shoulder height, as Dean moved back into the bedroom and leaned against the wall.  
  
“Hey.  Sure you’re doing okay?”  
  
Sam nodded, hesitated, then closed the inches between them to lean against the wall, too, bending his head to rest on Dean’s shoulder.  Dean let go of one hand to rub Sam’s neck, running his fingers absently through the hair at the nape.  Kid needed a haircut.  
  
“Jim’s a good guy,” he said, after a moment.  “He was real supportive of, y’know.  Getting you out.  But we don’t gotta stay long.  We can take off in the morning, if we like. An hour from now. Say the word, and we’re burning rubber.”  
  
Sam nodded against his shoulder, before turning his head to the side to catch Dean’s eye.  “All right.”  
  
When they came back downstairs, Jim smiled and led them out through the back door.  It probably was a nice view, Dean supposed, in winter or summer: the long field stretching north toward a treeline, while fewer than twenty yards away stood a sturdy brick church, easily three or four times the size of Jim’s house, with the edge of a cemetery peeking out from behind.  
  
“I keep a garden here,” Jim said. He stood looking proudly at a long dirt plot divided into neat rows and various types of plants. Dean recognized pumpkins and corn, but wasn’t positive about anything else. “Not too much, just tomatoes, green beans, lettuce, corn... eggplant when I can manage it. All those veggies Dean is so fond of.” Dean realized with a slight jerk—like changing gears on a bad highway—that Jim was talking to Sam again.  Sam was looking at the earth with interest, the toes of his tennis shoes scuffing at the edge of the dirt rows. Dean could almost imagine the calculations going through his head.  
  
They followed the flagstone path toward the church, Jim rambling all the while about the community’s founding, the first pastor, the town at the time, and recent renovations. This wasn’t Dean’s first church—he’d broken into a handful in his time to refill his holy water or grab some blessed silver—but one of the few he’d walked up to without an ulterior motive. Most churches offered supplies to hunters in daylight hours—he’d heard of guys who had gotten their hands on bones and relics by flashing the ASC ID, all very formal and legal and politely morbid—but where was the fun in that?  Besides, it was never a great idea to put up a big flag letting the community (and monster) know a hunter was in town. He’d found one church so resigned to reality, the storeroom had been barely locked, with a big box of supplies close enough to the door to trip over and  a sign reading FOR HUNTERS — PLEASE CLEAN AND RETURN, GOD BLESS YOUR MISSION. It was so thoughtful, Dean had broken in again the next night to do just that.  
  
He was so distracted wondering exactly why Pastor Jim was bringing them to the church, he reached the top of the neat stone steps leading to the large front doors before he realized Sam was no longer beside him. Jim’s hand on his arm stopped him.  
  
Sam stood on the stone path at the foot of the stairs, gazing up at the tall belltower with its steeple point and the simple stained glass windows dotting the church’s walls. As best Dean could read it, his expression held a mix of awe and apprehension.  
  
“This is a church,” Sam said, slowly, a hint of a question in his voice. At Pastor Jim’s nod, he took a small step back. Dean’s heartbeat tripped a little at that, but Sam didn’t look panicked or even particularly upset. If anything, his voice was matter-of-fact. “I can’t go in.”  
  
For a moment, Dean didn’t understand.  Then he looked to Pastor Jim, and the tight-lipped sadness there (almost anger, but not a shred of it directed at Sam, which probably saved the old bastard's life, kept Dean's hand off his gun) made it clear.  
  
It wasn’t like churches meant a lot to Winchesters, beyond being useful supply closets and the occasional sponsors of a one-time-only-needed soup kitchen.  Not like he thought Sam had been missing out because Dean hadn’t rushed him to Sunday school when they blew out of FREACS, so Dean wasn’t sure why he felt the same cold rage-depression as when Sam looked astounded by Dean offering him an extra jacket on the first chilly day of fall. Then Pastor Jim took two steps back down toward Sam and held out his hand toward Sam.  “Yes, you can.  Come with us, Sam,  it’s all right.”  
  
Sam blinked and looked to Dean. No terror written in his eyes, just uncertainty, nerves, and a hint of something else beneath the surface.  
  
Dean pulled on his best carefree smile, jamming his hands in his pockets. Lying with his eyes had never been this hard, before Sam. “Dude, if they let me through, you’re a shoo-in. No sweat.”  
  
Sam hesitated again, glancing between them, before slowly mounting the steps, hunching slightly away from Jim’s hand on the way to Dean’s side.  Pastor Jim went through the door first and held it open to let them pass.  Dean entered quickly, just to show Sam it really was okay, and turned to see him squeezing his eyes shut, fists clenched as he stepped over the threshold.  Dean leaned forward to tug Sam’s hand into his, sliding their fingers together, and Sam’s eyes snapped open, meeting his suddenly, too wide but still not over the edge.  
  
Jim crossed the vestibule and rested his hands almost reverently—well, fuck that, he was a man of the cloth, he probably had to be reverent or something—on the doors before opening the sanctuary. Sam stopped in the doorway, but this time the expression in his wide eyes as he slowly raised his head was nowhere near fear. Dean had to look twice to see what was so impressive about the little church.  
  
He had never given stained glass windows much thought before, or the way the ceiling vaulted above his head like a circus tent. But now he saw it through Sam’s eyes: the closest confining wall at least two stories above, a shadowy space of air, freedom, silence, and dark wooden pews splashed with ruby, gold, emerald, and sapphire light shining through the high-set windows...it was something. And nothing at all like Sam had experienced before.  
  
“What do you know about churches, Sam?”  
  
Sam’s hand twitched in Dean’s, and Dean blew out his breath, wishing Jim would stop sneaking up on him, physically and figuratively, with his questions, his kindness—wishing _he’d_ stop being surprised already by someone else talking to Sam. It should happen all the time, and just because it didn’t—well, he shouldn’t feel like Jim was threatening when it was a good thing, finally, for Sam.  
  
Sam swallowed nervously, his hold tightening. Yeah, this urge Dean had to tell Jim to leave Sam the fuck alone was definitely not healthy, and not particularly helpful for anyone. That said, if Sam needed out of there, Dean would definitely knock Jim over to get to the door; a guy shouldn’t lie to himself too much.  
  
"They," Sam began, and as soft as his voice was, it echoed through the hall. He stopped, stared upward for a moment, and then began again, quieter, almost reverent as Jim had been earlier. "Widely considered holy, they are consecrated ground where obedient monsters may not—many monsters cannot enter. Humans go to them for protection, supernatural and otherwise, for reflection, and for so-called communi—because of—to be c-closer to a higher power. Blessed objects such as rosaries, scapulars, medals, silver, water, salt, and, in some cases, relics have been shown effective against supernatural threats, and thus churches rate as a vital resource in the war against supernatural evil. They’re very important, s-sir.”  
  
Dean watched him with surprise.  He had expected Sam to quaver and stutter, but he had spoken with flat precision, as though reciting.  
  
"That's all true," Jim said, heavily.  "But they're also places of worship, and of sanctuary for _any_ who seek it."  The emphasis didn't slip past Dean, though he wasn't sure if Sam understood it. If he noticed, he showed no reaction. "They are places to pray, to reach out to God, though He is everywhere, and places to share knowledge, understanding, and faith.”  Sam's hand twitched again inside Dean's, his chin tucked close to his chest, eyes on his shoes.  
  
Jim watched them for a moment. Dean had no doubt the pastor had noted their clasped hands, the tension but not panic in Sam’s shoulders. After a second, Jim tipped his head up and took a slow breath, though whether to soothe himself or Sam, Dean couldn’t tell. “And, Sam,” he said at last, and Sam’s head snapped up into some middle distance, where he could easily watch Jim out of the corner of his eye without looking at him directly, “I promise that you are welcome in this place.  Do you believe me?”  
  
“Yes, sir,” Sam said, eyes on the floor, and Pastor Jim stopped him there, his tone light but firm.  
  
“My name’s Jim, Sam. You can call me that, or Pastor, or Murphy, whatever you want, not going to stand on formality here.”  
  
Sam swallowed visibly and did not look up. “Yes, Pastor,” he said hesitantly.  
  
“Good. Now, who’s hungry? Stew was just about done when you pulled up, and it should be perfect now.”  
  
Dean answered for both of them. “Yeah, that sounds good.”  
  
When they reached the house, Jim led them straight to the kitchen and slid the lid off a huge silver pot on the stove. It did smell damn good. “Dean, the silverware drawer is the furthest on the right, and the cabinet with glasses is right above it.  Would you set the table?  Sam, I’d appreciate it if you’d cut the bread.”  
  
Dean glanced toward Sam in time to see him freeze. Jim might not have noticed, but Dean could see his breath catch as easily as watching his face pale, at this point.  Dean hesitated too, about to forcefully suggest they switch chores, but Jim had already put a rough loaf and wooden cutting board on the counter, along with a long serrated knife.  Sam swallowed and stepped forward, hands clenching once before he reached for the knife.  
  
Dean dawdled with the silverware, watching Sam surreptitiously, just to make sure this wasn’t about to panic.  Sam handled the knife and bread with infinite care, as though they might both crumble under his hands, but he seemed to be managing  the slicing all right.  Deeming the situation under control, Dean took the glasses and a fistful of silverware to the dining room.  
  
When Jim had finally judged the stew perfect, he brought the entire pot out to the table and ladled its contents into the three bowls. Dean stopped before his chair nervously, eyes on Sam, but while Sam glanced up at him, questioning, he didn’t seem as afraid as last time.  Hell, Sam was _looking_ at him now.  
  
“Go ahead and have a seat, boys.” Jim led by example, not looking at either of them. Dean nodded slightly to Sam, and they sat together.  Sam clenched the sides of his chair briefly, and then let go with an audible exhale.  
  
Dinner conversation was the strangest combination of awkward and easy Dean had ever suffered through. Sam was nervous, twitching every time Jim asked him a question (whether it was to pass the bread or how he’d liked Colorado), forcing out halting responses that rarely came close to full answers, while Dean bit his lip to keep from jumping in and rescuing him. About halfway through his first bowl of stew (he didn’t exactly need to think about putting food in his mouth), he’d wised up to Pastor Jim’s game, realized that Jim was _intentionally_ addressing Sam, including him in the conversation, asking him to interact with someone who clearly still terrified him. Much as he hated how painful it was for Sam, it was probably good for all of them. And watching how Jim slowly eased that terror from Sam’s shoulders simply by eating, smiling, and making small talk was one of the most reassuring sights Dean had seen in months.  
  
Jim let Sam and Dean clear the dishes and start washing while he leaned against the counter, still keeping up his steady, nonthreatening stream of chatter. “Tomorrow morning I’m going into town to run some errands, always providing that my rust-bucket car starts. The parish school is field-tripping to the Minnesota Children’s Museum this week, and I volunteered to prepare some sack lunches and snacks for the kids. I was going to rustle up some hands in town, but maybe you could give me a hand putting them together.”  
  
“Uh, sure,” Dean said, then realized Jim had directed the question toward Sam. Bent over the dish he was scrubbing, Sam hadn’t seemed to notice he was being addressed.  
  
Jim met Dean’s eyes and smiled.  “I actually thought you and I could head out to the old rifle range out back, see if I’m still as sharp as a Winchester.”  
  
“I can do that.” Dean nudged Sam on the shoulder. “And if you and Sam need more help with the lunches, I can pitch in.”  
  
“As long as Sam wants to help.” Jim’s tone was a little cooler. No threat, not even reaching the level of disapproval, but Dean understood.  
  
Sam’s head snapped up, then down, but after a quick breath he seemed calmer. “I would, s—Pastor.”  
  
Jim grinned. “Excellent.”  
  
Upstairs in their room, Dean sat next to Sam on the bed, nudging his knee with his own.  For a minute they said nothing. The room’s little window had a good view of the field and distant forest, with the near-full moon rising over it.  
  
“You doing okay?” Dean asked at last.  
  
Sam nodded, pressing his shoulder to Dean’s.  
  
“I mean, you doing better?” Dean persisted. “Better than we were at...”  
  
“Yeah,” Sam said, and met his gaze with a small smile.    
  
Dean rubbed Sam’s back.  “Good.”  
  
The night before, in a tiny motel on a stretch of road to nowhere, Sam had slept facing Dean with both hands clutching Dean’s shirt, waking fitfully every quarter-hour with half-sobs in his throat, until Dean had opted to screw sleeping. Better to stay awake and soothe the nightmares before they began.  
  
Sam still hadn’t gotten much sleep. As he changed for bed and curled cautiously up on Jim’s air mattress, Dean eyed the dark circles around his eyes and wished that he could have done fuck-all about those nightmares, because Sam looked like he’d been put through a ringer and then wrinkled up anyway.  
  
Dean felt exhausted now, too, ready to drop (in a new place, new people, maybe not the best idea), but he wanted to make sure Sam could sleep here, first.  If it was going to be the way it had been at Bobby’s, better to know now.  
  
The air mattress rustled, and Dean scooted to the edge of the bed to peer down.  He hadn’t been able to convince Sam to take the bed, but he was ready to try again if the blow-up mattress was too weird.  He’d prefer the floor, himself.  
  
“How’s that working for ya?”  
  
In the dim light through the window, he could just make out Sam’s shrug.  “‘Sokay.”  
  
It was stupid to feel like Sam was far away when he was still there within arm’s reach.  Stupid, but Dean was willing to bet he wasn’t the only one who felt it.  He shifted back a little and patted the mattress.  “C’mere.”  
  
Sam was up at once, scrambling to fit himself in.  It was cozy, just as Dean’d imagined, but not exactly uncomfortable.  Sam’s breath gusted warm across Dean’s collarbone, and Dean fit his arm along Sam’s back, fingers nestled in his hair.  
  
Sam’s breathing evened out, deep and audible, his body relaxing as it only did in sleep.  Relieved, Dean exhaled, shutting his eyes and letting himself drift. He kept his arm around Sam, though, because, new places or no, new people or no, there was not a chance he’d let Sam fall, even with an air mattress below.  
  
~*~  
  
Jim was gone the next morning when they woke up. Dean felt like some kind of post-winter bear, foraging for food after his first decent night of sleep since before Bobby’s, Sam hovering behind him with fewer dark circles around his eyes.  A note in the kitchen—how Jim managed to be verbose even in print was beyond Dean—led them to the cereal cupboard and invited them to help themselves and explore if they wanted. The map of the property attached was completely incomprehensible, and Dean opted to stay in and take the opportunity to chill on the couch with Sam, arm wrapped over his shoulder while he read.  
  
True to his word, Pastor Jim returned before lunchtime with grocery bags. He set Sam up in the kitchen, carefully and thoroughly explained the steps for sandwiches and snack bags (“We’ve got three kids with nut allergies, so make the no-peanut mix first”) and then beckoned Dean toward the library.  He pressed something under the cabinet drawer next to the bookshelves, popping open the sealed doors, and Dean whistled at the gun rack inside.  
  
Jim smiled. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”  
  
He wasn’t smiling about half an hour later when they had gotten to the secluded little range (just a clearing with wood-and-paper targets hung at various distances from a simple wooden fence) and Dean had fired off his first couple rounds. Jim frowned at the targets, arms folded like they were a personal affront.  
  
Dean kept his eyes forward and tried sincerely to believe that he wasn’t blushing. He’d hit the target every time (five shots, five neat little holes), but his aim was all over the place. And not one bullet had gone through the bullseye. He hadn’t been so embarrassed of his shooting since before high school.  
  
“Tell me you’re out of practice, or I’m going to start worrying about your survival odds.” Jim peered toward the target, eyes narrowed like he could use some kind of X-ray vision to see the bullets lodged in the trees. “I mean, that’s not shitty shooting by any means. But it’s not exactly a headshot, either.”  
  
Dean shifted. “I might be...a bit out of practice.”  
  
The pastor shifted his stance to mimic Dean, still studying the target. All of _his_ shots clustered neatly around the center. “How long has it been since you fired a gun?”  
  
“‘Bout...’bout three months.”  
  
Jim’s expression softened. “Ah.”  
  
Even though Dean felt rusty as hell, it was good to have a weapon in his hands again, feel the recoil, watch his shots focus down until he was getting the bullets where they had to go. There was nothing complicated here, no old fear and triggers and _shit_ coming back. Just the gun’s weight, the target, and his own mind. Sam was safe in he house—Jim had locked the door when they left, after letting Sam know exactly how he could get out if he had to—and Jim was a solid presence next to him, undemanding, supportive, and for once, silent.  They shot for a while, once switching out the targets, until Dean had sunk into the rhythm of aim, breathe, and fire.  
  
“So,” Dean said at last, pausing to reload his rifle. “You seem—pretty good with Sam.”  It was a little grudging, wary, not quite a compliment.  
  
Jim’s smile was thin.  “I’ve served in some trauma clinics and juvenile centers, saw a number of children from abusive homes. Helped a few. I’m familiar with the signs, though none of those cases came close to what Sam’s been through.”  There was a moment of silence, as Dean tried to focus on the target within his sights and ignore the tightness in his throat.  Then Jim asked, “Do you _know_ what Sam’s been through, Dean?”  
  
Motherfucking fuck fuck fuck.  Dean lowered the gun, but kept his eyes on the target.  “Enough,” he said.  “I’ve seen—I’ve seen his goddamn back, Pastor.  It’s...you should see it for yourself,  it’s not something I can describe...I couldn’t...”  
  
“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Jim said mildly. “I don’t think asking Sam to take his shirt off for an unknown man is what he needs right now.”  
  
Dean grimaced.  “Shit, no.  You’re right. You’re so fucking right about that.”  
  
“And you need to think about even saying things like that before you do more damage to that boy than life has already done.” Jim’s voice was sharp, warning. “Even the most ordinary things to you could trigger Sam into flashbacks that force him to relive his worst memories.”  
  
Dean spun, glaring the pastor in the eye. “You think I’ve just been skipping on my merry way, eating Popsicles and slacking off my shooting practice for three months? You think I haven’t learned one fucking thing about how fucked up that kid is?”  
  
“I think you’ve been adjusting,” Jim said levelly. “I think you’ve learned how to respond to Sam, but I’m not so sure how much you’ve _learned_.  What has he _told_ you, Dean? And did he volunteer to take his shirt off, or did you give him an order?”  
  
Dean swallowed, tasting something like bile in the back of his throat, though he didn’t flinch from Jim’s steady gray-eyed gaze.  “He was sick. I wasn’t fucking stripping him down ‘cause I had a perverted boner or some shit like that.  I got him changed and back into bed and that was _all_ I did.  And Sam’s not...I don’t think he’s ready to talk about it yet, not without getting worse.”  
  
“No, he probably isn’t,” Jim agreed, his tone softening.  “All the same, Dean.  You need to keep in mind how little you know, and how ignorance might damage things.”  
  
“Well, thanks for that tip, ‘cause here I was sure that all those panic attacks were a bad case of allergies.”  Dean swung his gun up and squeezed, blasting away the middle of the fresh target to show the wood beneath.  
  
As Dean lowered the gun to reload, Jim slid his shotgun into his holster. “Has Sam been sexually abused?”  
  
Jesus fucking Christ.  The rifle felt twice as heavy in Dean’s hands, too much weight to reload, to lift, to fire. He didn’t know what to do with it.  Facing that question felt no different than facing the end of that barrel. He would almost have preferred for the whole fucked-up world to end rather than find the answer to that question.  But it didn’t, and he had to say something.  “That,” he forced out at last, “is not something we’ve talked about.”  
  
"It wouldn’t surprise me if he had been,” Jim said, undeterred and remorseless.  His tone was measured, cool, dispassionate almost to the point of indifference. “What do _you_ think? There would be signs, negative or unnaturally pliant reactions to sexual content, certain assumptions he would make about your behavior and those around you. Have you noticed anything like that, Dean?”  
  
The barrel of the gun was looking all the sweeter now.  Dean tried to focus on the fact that he could leave this conversation at any time. He could turn around and walk back to Sam who was waiting for him, break down the door if he had to, and they would be gone from this place no better, no worse, than they had been before. “I asked him,” he said, his voice strange and mechanical, tinny in his own ears.  “Once.”  
  
“What, exactly, did you ask?”  
  
Dean hadn’t, really.  He’d been too much of a coward to get even the key words out, but Sam had spazzed enough to make Dean certain that he’d understood. Though now, looking back, maybe he should have been certain of other things. Dean cleared his throat.  “He swore there was nothing like that.”  
  
Pastor Jim sighed, shook his head, and turned back toward the range, gun back in his hands.    
  
The sympathy and conviction in his movement and expression sparked a flash of anger out of Dean’s numbness.  “He doesn’t lie to me.”  
  
“Well,” Jim said thoughtfully, “if Sam is choosing to lie now about this—if he doesn't want to tell you—that's his right, and you can’t force him into anything he isn’t ready for. But also keep in mind that he might not even understand that what happened was assault. Victims—survivors—often don’t.  They tend to be ashamed or blame themselves, even make excuses for their attackers.”  
  
“What makes you so damn certain that’s what happened?” Dean snapped.    
  
“Only the first five minutes I spent with him,” Jim returned, meeting Dean’s eye.    
  
Dean swore and turned away, slamming home the next round of ammunition and raising the rifle back to his shoulder. He didn’t drop it again until the latest target was a handful of white tatters barely bound to the tree.  
  
“We’ve been getting better,” Dean said abruptly.  “You might not believe it, since—Bobby’s didn’t go as well as I hoped, but—we’ve come leaps and bounds the last couple of months.”  
  
“That’s good news.  A really promising sign.  But don’t get carried away. Sam spent years in that camp, from such an early age that it makes me sick to think anyone would condone that decision, and nothing he experienced can be ‘gotten over.’ The damage will be lifelong, Dean.  It will never be further away than those scars you’ve seen.”  
  
Dean’s hands tightened on the gun, and he leaned against the fence heavily, feeling the splinters dig into his forearm, wishing he could just _do_ something that would make this go away.  
  
Jim was watching him shrewdly.  “Dean, I know you were determined as hell to get Sam out, and you’ve paid a great deal for it, personally. That’s no little thing.  Few men have what it takes to do something like that, and you’re what, twenty? Twenty-one?  But do you know where you’re going from here?  Where the next year or five will take you?  Not to be a pessimist, but what’s your plan if Sam never gets much better, if he continues to regress unexpectedly from memories you can’t anticipate, if he’s always dependent on you to survive day by day and can’t interact in the world. Are you prepared for that?”  
  
“Prepared?” Dean was glad they were in the middle of nowhere, far from the house, far from anyone who would hear them ( _especially Sam)_ because he was shouting now, practically screaming in the pastor’s face, nose to nose with the man and he wasn’t sure he could stop, wasn’t sure he could get enough control to bring himself down when someone had finally hit straight at the heart of all the fear, all the anger that had been simmering under his skin for so long. “No, I’m not _prep_ _ared_ for that, because he’s going to get better. He has been, and he _will_ , and I’m not going to let you cast doubt on that, do you hear me? And even if there was, there is _nothing_ that can make me give up on _him_. I’m not gonna bail on the hundredth or even the thousandth panic attack.  Sam and me will make this work—we’ve _been_ making this work, and I’ll never stop meeting him halfway, or three-fourths of the way, or wherever else he needs me to be. After coming this far, Pastor, you’re shitting yourself if you think I’d walk away.  Ever.  As long as he wants me.”  
  
Jim didn’t flinch an inch from Dean’s snapping eyes and snarling mouth, and there was no fear in his face, body, or voice when he replied. “I’m glad you’ve got that faith, Dean. With that, you both might come out of this intact.”  
  
They held eye contact for a moment longer, then turned together back toward the targets, Jim picking up the second rifle.  For the next few minutes, there was no sound in the clearing but the reports of the rifles.  
  
“Tell me this, Pastor,” Dean said, once he’d emptied the magazine, “if there’s such a nice merciful God controlling everything the way you guys are always preaching, how the _fuck_ ” —Dean snapped the rifle open with a particularly vicious jerk— “does he let kids like Sam go through years and years of fucking _torture_ and be treated like they’re goddamn nothing? Where’s the justice in that, how can the universe have some kind of lily-white, perfect divine being and _that_ at the same time?”  
  
Resting his rifle against the wooden post, Jim clasped his hands behind his back, head bowed slightly. “That,” he said quietly, “is the million-dollar question.”  
  
“Oh, thanks for that. For a minute I thought you were going to give me a flippant answer.”  
  
Jim sighed.  “Well, it’s hard, because I don’t imagine you’re going to sit still while I cover four years of theology classes. Furthermore, you can’t condense two millennia of thought, writing, and debate into a short-answer response.  God knows men smarter than me have tried, and failed, and started wars and lost souls because of this question.  But if you want my view: God’s ways are not ours, and we were never meant to understand him fully.  We’re not capable of it, so after a certain point, we shouldn’t try.  Scripture enlightens me, as far as I may be enlightened. Of course we’re going to question his plan and rage at injustice, that’s natural. That’s _needed._ But I maintain my faith because while I see evil in the world—and a true hell of a lot of it, make no mistake—there is also good.  There is grace. I see it in chance, and fate, and luck, and people choosing every day to be _less_ monstrous than they could be, and sometimes even good. Whatever the form, it’s those things, big and small, that let me believe—in spite of the demons I have exorcised and the assault victims I have consoled—that there is a greater power at work.  And that’s what gets me to sleep sober.  
  
“I can’t tell you why God let Sam end up in Freak Camp.  But I believe you were part of his plan to get him out.”  
  
Dean turned away, shaking his head.  He couldn’t weigh in on most of what Jim had said, but _that_ part—well, if he _were_ going to believe in a god, it sure wasn’t going to be one that counted on _him_ for any scheme, let alone for something as important as getting Sam out of FREACS.  
  
They walked back in silence across the field, rifles slung over their shoulders, until Dean decided he’d have a better chance of looking himself in the mirror once they left if he manned up enough now to ask a professional that mother of all questions.  
  
“You think I’ve got a shot, Pastor? Think he’s ever going to get better? Or am I just fucking fooling myself?”  
  
Jim was uncharacteristically silent for a long moment before he answered.  “I think you’ve got a shot, and a good shot at that.  Here’s why: Sam loves you more than anything. You’re the world to him, and I don’t think that’ll ever change, because you love him right back.”  
  
Dean took a deep breath, eyes focused steadily ahead of him, trying not to give away how a boulder over his heart, one that had been there since they were at Bobby’s or maybe even before, had just broken into pieces and tumbled away.  
  
Until Jim asked, “Have you heard from your father lately?”  
  
Dean stiffened, any comfort he’d felt (along with worry and thinking too hard and all that, but they weren’t so bad) dissipating into a more normal prickly defensiveness.  “What’s that got to do with anything?”  
  
Jim shrugged.  “It’s not unreasonable to ask after an old friend. I’m just wondering if you’re in touch with your father.”  
  
“No,” Dean bit off, and that should have been the end of it.  
  
Pastor Jim was bad at taking hints.  “In the time I knew John,” he said, after a short pause, “two things about him became amply clear.  One was, as I’ve said, that he’s a damn stubborn bastard.  Clever, ingenious, but stubborn, and he had it in him to be pretty ruthless, too. In a hunt that’s a pretty good thing.  Less so at other times.  The other was how much he loved your mother. He never stopped grieving for her. That kind of death-defying love—and the grief that comes from its loss—doesn’t handle reason well. While she was alive, she meant everything to him, and her death warped him. It defined his whole worldview—”  
  
“Yeah, I knew him pretty well too,” Dean snapped.    
  
Jim gave him an appraising look.  “All right,” he replied, and dropped it.  
  
When they re-entered the house, Sam looked up from the kitchen counter, where brown paper bags were lined in neat rows.  Dean could probably have built a ruler using the precise distance between each one. He wasn’t going to think too hard about that.  “Looks pretty badass, Sammy.”  
  
Sam met his eyes and answered with a small, hopeful smile, and Dean barely caught himself from stepping forward and kissing him right then to see if he could open up a bigger smile.  
  
“Thanks, Sam, those snacks will be a treat,” Jim said. “Feeling better, Dean?”  
  
Dean looked at him. “Sure.”  
  
“I m-made the sandwiches and the treats.” Both men turned to look at Sam, and he shifted awkwardly. “P-pastor.”  
  
Jim’s expression suffused with easy, innocent joy. Dean never knew someone other than him would get that happy for Sam.  “Thank you, that’s just exactly what I needed.”  
  
Later that night, after another straightforward meal mainly driven by Jim’s effortless, endless conversation, punctuated with Sam’s shy, ever-more-frequent smiles, Dean and Sam headed back upstairs and settled in for a quiet evening.  
  
Dean came out of the shower to find Sam sitting cross-legged on the bed, reading a book set before him on the blanket.  For a moment Dean stood watching him, the curve of his neck and how his pajamas still hung baggy over his skinny chest and knees, thinking about all that sixteen-year-old kid had come through (more than Dean knew, could even begin to imagine) to be safe with him now.    
  
Then he crossed the room to sit in front of Sam, who looked up at once. Dean could have predicted every part of that motion, from the graceful straightening of his spine to the way his wide-eyed attention immediately transferred to Dean.  
  
Dean crossed his own legs, grasping Sam’s hands in his own.  Yeah, chick flick move, but whatever.  It was becoming harder to care about stuff like that when it came to Sam.  
  
“Hey. “ Like he didn’t already have Sam’s complete attention, but he needed a minute to think.  He knew what he had to say, but that didn’t mean he had the _words._  “You may not believe me,” he said at last, looking into Sam’s eyes, “but I’ve fucked up a lot with you.  And I want you to know that I’m sorry, and I’m going to do better, because you deserve that.”  
  
Sam blinked at him once, twice, and his grip on Dean’s hands tightened.  He didn’t understand, Dean could see that, along with the first flicker of fear in his eyes. Dean leaned forward and pressed his lips to Sam’s cheek, moved one hand up to grip his opposite shoulder so they could brace each other.  
  
If Dean spent the rest of his life working on it, he would show Sam that he didn’t have to be afraid.  
  
~*~

  
Breakfast was almost easy. Jim talked—did the man never shut up?—and they ate french toast made with some kind of thick, irregular bread. Jim hummed in satisfaction when he swallowed the last bite from his plate. “That, gentlemen, is my favorite breakfast. Eggs made from honest-to-goodness chickens and homemade bread. Speaking of, Sam, would you give me a hand making another couple loaves?”  
  
Sam started in his chair, then shot Dean a panicked look.  Dean attempted an encouraging look in return, though he had a feeling it came out mostly baffled.  Sam looked toward Pastor Jim, wetting his lips and twisting his hands in his lap.    
  
“Pastor,” he said.  “I—I could try, but I’ve n-never—”  
  
“That’s all right, there’s a first time for everything.  Grab some plates, come on into the kitchen, wash your hands, I’ll show you what to do.”  
  
Dean followed Sam to the doorway, perplexed, wondering if the grocery store was really far enough away to make cooking his own bread easier than going to buy it.    
  
Jim caught his eye.  “Dean, I’ve been meaning to ask. Could you replace the drive belt on my lawnmower? I‘ve got a part in the back shed. I’ve been meaning to ask a parishioner to fix it, but never got around to it, and I’d try to do it myself, but if it’s got moving parts, I’m pretty much useless. Even the coffee maker gives me problems.”  
  
“Uh, sure, I’ll give it my best shot.  Where did you say the drive belt was again?”  
  
“Oh, somewhere in the shed,” Jim said vaguely.  “I think along the left wall, or in one of the stacked bins in the corner?  I’m sure it’ll pop out at you before long.”  
  
“Got it,” Dean said, and looked to Sam.  “You okay without my moral support, Sam?”  
  
Sam looked up past his bangs to meet Dean’s eyes and give a fractional nod.  
  
“I got my phone in my pocket—you?”  
  
“Yeah,” Sam said, and smiled faintly as he touched his jeans pocket.  
  
“All right,” Dean said, reassured. With one final look behind him, he stepped out through the back door in the direction of the shed.  
  
~  
  
As the door swung shut after Dean, Sam tried to keep breathing evenly. He was surprised by how well it worked.  Sure, he felt some anxiety now (alone, the hunter’s attention focused solely on him, and Dean out of hearing range), but it was nothing like it had been at Hunter Singer’s, when everything, including his own body, had been wholly out of control.    
  
Sam didn’t know what was so different now (maybe it was that Dean had also been wary about this hunter, defensive, where with Hunter Singer he had been simply worried about Sam; maybe because Pastor Jim had already spoken to him), but this was—manageable.  
  
He approached the counter opposite Pastor Jim, who pushed over a red plastic bowl with a large, pale-yellow lump inside.  
  
“That’s the dough,” Pastor Jim said.  “All it is is flour, water, sugar, yeast, and a little salt.  I keep a stockpile of starter in storage so I rarely need to start from scratch.  What we’re going to do now is knead the dough so it’ll rise properly when it’s baked.”  
  
Sam wasn’t sure what all that meant, but he nodded, prepared to follow along as best he could.  He was fairly hopeful, at least, that Pastor Jim would break each step down as he’d done yesterday, so even a freak would understand.  
  
Pastor Jim dusted the counter top with the white powder he called flour, and then Sam followed his example rolling the dough out of the bowl.  The first moment of contact was startling—it was stickier and heavier against his hands than he had imagined, and stranger altogether.  He couldn’t imagine how it would become _bread_.  
  
“Go ahead and get your hands into it,” Pastor Jim said, smiling.  “You want to put your weight into it.”  
  
Sam copied him, digging his fingers in, flattening the dough, and flipping it over.  The dough was strange, and yet handling it felt _good_ in a way he couldn’t define.  
  
Soon they set up a rhythm, pressing a corner of the dough out with their palms, folding it back toward the center, and rotating the dough to repeat the process.  It was unlike anything Sam had done before, but he liked it: the earthy smell, the texture of the dough, and the energy required to knead.  
  
“Do you like traveling with Dean?” Pastor Jim asked.  
  
Sam paused in his kneading, but only for a moment.  “Yes, Pastor.”  He wondered, as an afterthought, if he should be afraid to admit that, but he wasn’t afraid of Pastor Jim.  He didn’t think the Pastor could take him away from Dean, and he was almost as sure he wouldn’t try.  Not unless he thought that Sam was harming Dean.  
  
They kneaded in silence for a minute before Pastor Jim spoke again.  “Has it been getting easier?”  
  
“Yes, Pastor,” Sam said, keeping his focus on the dough.  “Dean—teaches me a l-lot.  He’s sh-shown me...so much, in the world.  He’s very, very good to me.”   _I know I don’t deserve it_.  
  
“Dean’s a brave kid,” Pastor Jim said quietly, and Sam bent closer to the dough. Dean was the bravest and most wonderful man in the world, he’d known that all his life, but he knew it in a different way now, the way the Pastor meant it.  Dean was brave enough to take a monster out of Freak Camp and let him act like a real.  “And determined, too.  Stubborn, like his father.”  
  
Sam said nothing to that. It was not for him to comment on Winchesters, even if Dean had named him one.  The thought of Dean giving him his name, as always, sent a thrill through him, filling his chest with warmth. He barely kept his smile to himself.  
  
“Do you have any memory of your life before the camp?”  
  
The smile dropped. Sam shook his head.  “No, Pastor.”  
  
Pastor Jim sighed softly.  “The world’s a big, complicated place.  I wish I could tell you every part of it will be better than what you’ve known, but I’m afraid some parts—and people—aren’t so kind. There’s good and evil everywhere, though I hope and pray that the abomination that is Freak Camp is unique in its concentration.”  
  
Sam hoped so, too.  After all, there were more reals than monsters in the world, and hunters worked tirelessly to remove the monsters there were.  They were sent to places like Freak Camp, just as Sam had been ( _because that’s where he belonged_ , but he told that voice to shut up because Dean had taken him out and Dean knew best), and that’s why there was so much evil in Freak Camp: so there would be less everywhere else.  
  
“Do you know the difference between good and evil, Sam?”  
  
Sam’s hands stopped on the dough.  The Director had never asked a question like that, and at first he didn’t know how to answer it.  At last, he resumed kneading and said slowly, “Evil is what m-monsters do.  Hurting people.  Good is—” _what Dean does_ , “taking c-care of people, giving them f-food. Making them w-warm and safe.”  
  
“That’s a pretty decent summary,” Pastor Jim said.  “Have you ever wanted to hurt people?”  
  
He voiced it like any other question, including last night when he had asked Sam if he wanted more stew, but Sam caught his breath in horror.  “No,” he said, and couldn’t keep that same horror out of his voice.  “N-no, n-never.”  His hands clenched in the dough, failing at what they should be doing, forgetting what they had been taught.  
  
“Good,” Pastor Jim said, and he did not sound surprised or like he had expected to hear anything else.  He hadn’t stopped kneading.  “Then I don’t believe you’re a monster, just as Dean doesn’t believe you’re a monster. A supernatural attribute, that alone does not make a monster.  Being accused of having a supernatural attribute doesn’t make a monster. Even wanting to hurt people who’ve done bad things doesn’t make you a monster,” he added.  “Dean’s hurt people, and I imagine he wants to—and will—hurt quite a few more who are doing evil things in the world.  I’d caution him to employ wisdom and restraint, but that doesn’t always mean he’s wrong.”  
  
Sam wasn’t entirely sure he understood all of that.  He needed time to think, to parse everything Pastor Jim had said and maybe what he meant, but the Pastor seemed content to give him that. He kept his eyes on his dough, not on Sam’s shaking arms or his downcast eyes.  Sam’s hands slowly remembered their task, and began pushing and folding the dough again.  
  
“I would also define as evil,” Pastor Jim continued, “any harm done to a child, or the defenseless.  Any conscious act of violence, manipulation, or refusal of basic needs—such as food, water, and shelter—is evil.  There is _never_ any excuse.”  
  
Sam wondered at the emphasis.  The premise seemed true, even obvious, as far as it went, but monster-children didn’t count as children.  And even if he fell under Pastor Jim’s and Dean’s definition of supernatural without being a monster (which seemed more and more likely), that still didn’t qualify him as a real.  He wasn’t and would never be pure, clean, whole the way that reals were. Not after the decisions he had made in camp, not after the Director had explained it so carefully, burned the knowledge into his skin.  
  
“Hey!” Dean stumbled into the kitchen so suddenly that it made Sam jump, and then made him smile, shy, nervous. It was strange to have his heart beating this fast and not be afraid, not really. He’d just been startled. Dean looked like he’d been fiddling under the Impala’s hood for an hour instead of fixing a lawnmower. Though it could be the same idea, Sam wasn’t sure how lawnmowers worked, or how much maintenance they needed. “You said that drive belt was in the shed, right? ‘Cause I can’t find the damn thing anywhere.”  
  
“Ah!” Pastor Jim clapped a hand dramatically to his forehead. The flour poofed into his hair and seemed to highlight the grin on his face. “That was the _last_ time the lawnmower broke, sorry. It’s really in the basement. I’m positive this time. Unless I don’t actually have one. In which case I’ll just have to give you the cash to get one in town.”  
  
Dean eyed him suspiciously. “Okay. You doing good, Sam?”  
  
Sam smiled a little wider. He was better, now, with Dean in the room asking him questions, just _being_ there, but he had been just fine before, too. If he could believe Pastor Jim, he would never have to fear this hunter unless he hurt people. And if Sam ever hurt people, he would want someone like Pastor Jim to end his life. “Fine, Dean. Look, it’s bread!”  
  
“Seriously?  Looks like a blob monster.” Dean frowned, and then glanced up. “I’ve always wanted to eat a blob monster. Maybe. I don’t even—I’m gonna go now and find that part, Pastor. Sam, call me if you need anything.”  
  
“Yes, Dean.”  
  
Dean glanced between them, then nodded once. “Good.”  
  
“I think the dough’s about done,” Pastor Jim said. He pressed two fingers in, then showed Sam how the indents remained.  Sam’s dough, when he tried it, did the same.  “Yes, that’s good.  Let’s grease these pans and get them into the oven.”  
  
They stood back after closing the oven door. Sam found himself smiling, really truly smiling in a way he rarely did for anyone but Dean. He wasn’t completely sure himself that he’d done everything right, that his loaf would turn into proper bread like Pastor Jim’s. But he was hopeful that it might.  
  
~*~  
  
“Do you believe?”  
  
Their shoes crunched through the first layer of fallen leaves carpeting the woods. Pastor Jim had suggested they go moose-spotting on an old trail that ran over a couple brooks, and Dean had figured they might as well. He wasn’t sure he bought Jim’s line about there being moose in the woods (after the Great Drive Belt Quest, he might never believe the man again when he said something elusive could be found just around the corner, under the house porch, or buried in his closet) but it was better than keeping Sam cooped up. And anyway, if there was any chance they actually existed, the kid deserved to see a moose.  
  
Dean kicked through some leaves in exactly the opposite way John had taught him to move through the woods, trying to think of some innocent, non-God-related way Sam might have meant the question.  
  
“I don’t know, Sam. You talking about...,” he made a vague circular motion up toward the treetops and the crisp blue sky, “the whole shebang?  The church and steeple, hymnbooks and altars and rosaries?  ‘Cause I’m not sure if you caught on, but the way Dad—the way I grew up, that shit was useful only as far as they helped gank the latest baddie.”  
  
“No,” Sam said simply, and ducked his head just for a moment before looking back at Dean.  “God.”  
  
Dean knew he owed it to Sammy to meet his eyes, but he couldn’t.  He had to figure this out first, because he _knew_ now the weight his words carried for Sam.  Far more than they should for _anyone_ , let alone Sam, and if he told Sam the truth now—that he’d never found a reason to believe there was anything out there looking out for those who mattered ( _not for Mom, not for you, Sammy_ )—that would be it for Sam, too.  Sam would accept that wholesale, just like he took everything Dean said, even the jokes that Dean had realized ten minutes later he should _never_ have told, but could never take back, never un-teach Sam—and even if there wasn’t any so-called Higher Power, Dean would be damned (yes, damned, he’d deal with the irony) if he took that hope away from Sammy along with everything else.    
  
It was bad enough that Sam had never had the safe illusions of childhood or any of the standard security blankets every kid was supposed to have (forget about Santa Claus; this was believing your parents would always be watching out for you, that they were invincible; believing you had a home and that the adults in authority would always bring you back to it).  Millions of people—even smart hunters like Pastor Jim who had seen first-hand the fucked-up evil in the world—still believed and found comfort in the idea that some kind of god-being was in control (over _what_ , he wanted to know), and if that worked for Sam, Dean couldn’t take that away from him.  
  
“I dunno, Sammy,” Dean said finally.  “That’s Jim’s area of expertise, not mine.”  
  
Sam gazed at him a moment longer before looking away.  Dean felt an absurd urge to reach out and touch him, like he could check his faith-temperature or something, make sure he hadn’t just demolished the last chance for belief that Sam might have—though it didn’t seem possible, _shouldn’t_ be possible, that there could be anything left for Dean to destroy, not after what Sam had been through.  Dean hoped, all the same, because what else could he do?  
  
“There could be,” he offered, and sure enough, Sam turned back toward him, hazel eyes intent and trusting. “I mean, I sure as hell haven’t seen all there is to see. And I’m not always fast out of the gate. You shouldn’t rule it out.”  
  
Sam blinked at him slowly, as though taking his measure (such a gaze shouldn’t chill Dean to the marrow, it shouldn’t), then looked ahead.  
  
Thank fuck Sam didn’t have any follow-up.  That he didn’t ask again, with that unavoidable directness, _what do_ you _believe_.    
  
Truth was, there had been a time—less than a year ago, even—when Dean had tried.  Really and truly tried to believe in a divine power, because he had dropped off the ASC paperwork into his cousin Mark’s hands and driven away, and he couldn’t cope with how some human bureaucracy might be the last insurmountable obstacle between him and fulfilling his promise to Sam.  That this huge, indifferent, incomprehensible evil (damn, he hated paperwork) he couldn’t control had the final say on whether he ever saw Sam again.  Whether Sam _lived_.  
  
And since it hadn’t been too long since John had told Dean exactly what he thought of him, and Bobby was eyeing him warily like he thought Dean might snap (and Dean wasn’t sure he wouldn’t), yeah, Dean had been kinda desperate.  Willing  to try anything. So he had tried, in those empty yawning nights when the universe seemed depthless and indifferent, when the sheer act of prayer seemed defiance to reason.  He had prayed, yeah.  Tried to do it every day, though maybe sometimes those prayers took the form of a bottle or a bullet, because this was more important than anything he had ever done, more important than his own life, and he didn’t know how not to fuck it up. He had nothing to lose except _everything_.  Maybe whatever was on the receiving end of those desperate pleas and promises understood anyway, because they’d come through: he’d gotten Sam.  
  
He _had_ gotten Sam, and that should have answered all his prayers, right?  Proof right there of the benevolent creator, because Dean Winchester had gotten what he’d wanted.  
  
Except by the time he’d gotten Sam home, he knew nothing was going to be like he’d expected, that even Sam was a different boy entirely from the one he’d remembered.  Even before Dean had seen his skin, he’d begun to realize that _things_ had happened to Sam that Dean might never be able to deal with—as though Dean’s fucking feelings were at all important when he was responsible for the most broken, terrified kid he’d ever seen, hell, beyond what he could even imagine.  Broken in ways he could still barely comprehend.  And he was supposed to acknowledge that there was some _god_ who’d allowed Sam to endure that?  Yeah, Dean would rather believe there was fuck all out there than _that._  
  
“Okay,” Sam said. He sounded thoughtful, nervous, and very small, but not like Dean had broken the last piece of him that could hope. “I won’t.”  
  
When his fingers closed around Dean’s, strong and shy, his anchor and his heartbeat, Dean knew that was probably the closest he would get to faith.  
  
~*~  
  
Pastor Jim was beating the snot out of them at dominoes—Dean had never before had a fear of tile games, but the way Jim practically cackled when he laid a double six made him grateful they weren’t placing bets—when the pastor’s cell phone rang.  
  
"I have to get this." Jim was already moving away from the table, the phone almost at his ear. He moved like something could jump him any second, and Dean knew before he spoke what the call was about.  
  
"Murphy," he said. "Yes, ma’am, I can help. No, God isn’t...ma’am, I need you to...what’s he doing now? Yes, that’s normal. It’s okay. He is? Good. No, I’m not going to call ASC. Could you hand the phone to  
your son, please? Thank you. Talk to me. Good, that’s good. You’re not alone, okay? I’ll be there in...where are you? Okay, twenty minutes, I will be there. Hold on, for her sake. No. Yes. God knows that. Yes, that would be good. Ma’am? Yes, ma’am, I’ll be there in twenty minutes, I just need you to stay calm and in the circle until I get there. If anything changes, call me again. Yes, God bless you."  
  
Jim flipped the phone closed, looking grim, withdrawn. "You boys can stay here as long as you need, but I have to go."  
  
“I wouldn’t stop you,” Dean said. “Let us know if you need anything.”  
  
"Ghost?" Sam asked in a small voice. He looked pale, but not terrified, for which Dean was grateful. If Bobby had gotten a call like that, he didn’t know what Sam would have done.  
  
Pastor Jim shook his head, while moving toward the door, grabbing the second half loaf of bread (Sam’s, which had turned out just as perfect as Jim’s; Dean would have eaten the whole thing in one sitting if Jim had let him) on his way. "Ghost possession or a psychic who’s panicking about his abilities. Sam, can I take this?"  
  
Sam nodded jerkily. Jim smiled, and for the first time since getting the call, he stilled. ”It helps sometimes, when everyone’s scared, to share something as basic as food.” He raised a hand soberly, seriously. “Dean, Sam. God be with you and bless you in your journey.”  
  
Dean shifted uncomfortably, and Sam nodded. “Thanks,” Dean said, “and good luck.”  
  
“Thanks,” Jim said, and then he was out the door. They heard him start up his car and barrel out.  
  
“Should we...” Sam trailed off, looking around the empty house like it was a new place that he didn’t know.  
  
“Yeah,” Dean answered. “Let’s head out.”  
  
They packed quickly, and Dean took their bags out to the Impala while Sam did one last check over the house for anything they might have missed.  Dean came back in to find him dawdling by the kitchen counter, looking at the notepad and pen Jim had used to write them a note their first morning there.  
  
At Dean’s inquiring look, Sam said slowly, “I was thinking...we could write a note to let him know we left, and to say thank you.  A thank-you note.”  
  
“Sure,” Dean said, startled.  It hadn’t occurred to him, but he shouldn’t have expected any less of Sam.  “You want a shot at it?”  
  
“Sure,” Sam said, and picked up the pen.  
  
 _Dear Pastor Jim,_  
  
 _Thank you very much for letting us into your home and giving us good meals. We had a nice time, and I liked learning how to knead bread.  I hope your hunt goes well._  
  
 _Sincerely,_  
  
 _Sam and Dean Winchester_


	18. Chapter 18

Sam was hungry and the bars weren’t open. Sure, Dean had no concrete proof that Sam was hungry, but Dean could pack in a cheeseburger, and he figured that anytime he could eat, Sam could use another layer of fat.

They stopped at a diner, a dinky Mom and Pop affair with vinyl booths and coffee that practically ate the roof off Dean’s mouth.

The cheeseburgers on the menu looked disgusting, even to Dean's admittedly obscenely high grease tolerance, so Dean ordered double blueberry pancakes, with bacon on the side, an orange juice and a milk for Sam. Dean still got twitchy when he thought about those long days of flu and misery, when he had thought Sam was going to breathe out and never take another breath in again. It wasn’t in Dean’s nature to think about food groups or say no to cholesterol, but for Sam’s sake, he would try to keep down the grease and increase the vitamins whenever he thought of it.

“Like it?” Dean nodded at Sam’s pancakes, blueberry sauce dribbling off the oily-but-still-delicious berry-filled cakes.

Sam swallowed his latest bite, met his eyes, and smiled. God, Dean loved that smile. It almost made his last draft of coffee taste good. “Yes, Dean. Though, they’re a little...” He shrugged, probably lacking the vocabulary yet to properly criticize the crap Dean fed him sometimes.

That was fine. Dean could give him a crash course in salty, sour, greasy and swimming-in-mystery-sauce as soon as they got back to the Impala. Right now he was just going to enjoy that smile.

But a bark of laughter from the assholes behind them made Sam wince, and Dean wondered if instead he should be giving them a crash course in basic table manners. Like, if Sam is goddamn smiling, you keep your damn mouth shut, or one Dean Winchester will close it for you. He looked over Sam’s shoulder, scowling. The three dudes sitting at the counter were another set wishing for a bar, if the amount of liquid moving from dented flasks to the coffee mugs was any indication. Or maybe they were just trying to sterilize the coffee before ingesting it.

“Hey,” said one with a huge, bushy beard and the shakiest hands, “did I tell you, Margie thinks they’ve got goddamned rats now?” He took another drink of coffee and laughed, the same laugh that had had Sam flinching a moment before. “If it ain’t one goddamned thing, it’s another. Fucked, shorting electricity, floor settling, damned if that woman’s had a piece of luck since she gave that shit what was coming to him.”

“Damn straight,” the youngest—a kid with an orange-red crew cut and slightly slurred speech—said. “Damn fucking straight. Would have shot him in the head myself, I knew what that fuck—“

“Keep your mouth off the dead,” said the third. “Just drink your damned coffee.”

“Though probably it was the goddamned rats that were pushing stuff around,” Bushy Beard said. “Least that’s settled. I thought she was going to smack that kid for saying—“

The third guy slammed his glass onto the table. “You shut up too, Nick. That kid’s been through enough. Fuck, Margie’s been through enough. Drink your fucking Irish coffee and shut the hell up.”

Dean wasn’t completely sure when he’d grabbed Sam’s hand. Maybe when the younger guy had mentioned shooting the mystery spouse in the head. Maybe when the third had slammed his glass into the wood. He didn’t know, and he didn’t really care, because Sam’s pulse was beating like a busted muffler against his fingers, and his wasn’t much better because he wanted to shove his fist into somebody’s face, ask them why the hell they were talking about shit like this in the middle of the day, half drunk and so stupid because couldn’t they see?

And the rest of him, from his gut to fifteen years of experience, knew what this was. Not even a week out from Jim’s and less than a fortnight past that conversation at Bobby’s, hunting had come back to bite him in the ass.

They were outside, six feet from the Impala before Dean found the balls to say it. “It’s a ghost,” he said. “I mean, all signs point to that, and...well, it’s a hunt.” He couldn’t look at Sam, not when the drive to go out now, chase down those civvies and pump them for the info he needed to salt and burn this sucker, was locked in combat with the need to not scare Sam, to not throw away what they had been carefully growing together, on one stupid spirit.

Sam nodded.

“Sam.” Dean swallowed. “I have to—“

“I c-can help with the r-research,” Sam said, without looking at him. “I’m—I was good at that. Unless you’re already s-sure that it’s the husband? Or at least, the m-man who was hitting them...”

Dean stared. He couldn’t quite wrap his head around the idea that Sam could be so calm. This was hunting they were talking about, with death and blood and monsters and putting that in the same thought as Sam made him uncomfortable, in spite of how many stories he’d told over the years about what he and D—he’d done his entire life, though not since he got Sam out of FREACS. But in the face of possible supernatural death and risk, Sam was calm.

The adrenaline—the energy he’d fought, clamped down on, strangled down because Sam couldn’t deal with it when he was fresh out of FREACS, and Dean would have done so much more than that for Sam, had tried to channel that energy into things Sam could work with—broke through then, filling his brain with the familiar static electricity of anticipation, feeling the easy readiness in his body, and bringing an easy, fierce grin to his face.

“Research is a good idea,” he agreed. “At least we’ve got to figure out where this sheet-wearing, ham-fisted bastard got buried.”

~*~

The Oak Acres Library was smaller than most of the libraries Dean had taken him to, but still smelled comfortingly of paper, dust, plastic shelving. It had five well-worn computers along one wall, a three-couch sitting area, two tables surrounded by folding chairs, and dozens of six-foot shelving units, all of which were visible from the desk and reception at the main door.

Dean looked over everything with the air of a man putting together a battle plan. Sam caught the quick glance he shot Sam’s way. It wasn’t the kind of look he had gotten from guards when they weren’t sure why the monster was allowed in the library, or from the Director when he was assessing a monster’s advantages and weaknesses. While Sam was grateful that Dean’s glance wasn’t either of those—and honestly, he hadn’t expected one of those—his stomach still clenched.

He was sure that some of the times that he’d researched had been for real hunts, with real time limits and risks. Probably even some of the ones where the Director had given him a time limit and beaten him because his progress had been too slow. But this was the first time he had heard the story, the first time he could possibly help and see how it worked in the real world. He wanted to do good, to show Dean that he could be useful, but even more than that, to be useful.

“Hey.” Sam turned to look directly at Dean, waiting. Dean wasn’t the Director and this wasn’t a test, but he was ready to do anything Dean needed, and he wanted to. Because he had seen the look in Dean’s eyes, an excitement that he usually only got when telling Sam about about lives saved, BAMFs burned, and Sam wanted to see it again.

“Maybe you could find that book you’re looking for, that sequel. The Blue Towers?”

For a second, Sam was just confused. He’d actually been looking for The Two Towers after finishing the first in the series (twenty-five cents at the last book sale), but it didn’t seem like the time to be looking for literature when there could be a ghost killing people in the very same town. He loved reading stories, he loved that Dean let him, but keeping people safe was much more important. “But if you need any help...”

“No, I got this, Sam, it’s fine.” Dean made a vague flapping gesture, looked nervous and about as uncertain as Sam was. “I’m just going to be over on the computers, see if they’ve got some old newspaper articles digitized. You can catch up when you find it.”

Sam nodded, slowly, even though he was still confused, and headed toward the genre section while Dean leaned on the help desk for a second, and then headed over to the computers. This was clearly important to Dean, so Sam was willing to follow his instructions until he could figure out what Dean was thinking.

But when Dean just ended up sitting at one of the computers and laboriously sight-typing the code to access the files he wanted, Sam was confused. He could have done that. He could have done that faster.

It took him about two minutes to find The Two Towers, and then, even though Dean didn’t seem to want him involved, he came over. He thought that sitting on the floor would draw attention—the only other person sitting on the floor was a chubby five-year-old smashing blocks together in the reading area while a tired-looking woman read a book with a shirtless man on the cover—so he cautiously pulled one of the unoccupied computer chairs closer behind Dean.

Dean’s brow was furrowed, all his attention focused on typing into the search engines. Sight-typing. Sam’s fingers itched. He could have done in two seconds what seemed to take Dean entire minutes to accomplish. He wasn’t sure if this was a brilliant plan of Dean’s to look less computer-literate than he was, or if he really hadn’t ever gotten the hang of it. Even before the Director, Sam had been good with computers. The Director's systems of punishments and expectations had jumped his words-per-minute rate some twenty words and taught him to find his way around any operating system that FREACS had and even some that the Director had brought in specifically to test his adaptability.

Even at Dean’s glacial speed, finding the pertinent information about the death was easy. There wasn’t much about any “Margie” killing her significant other on the internet, but the local papers had all been scanned into the archives. They barely had to scan back three months before the article came up.

Eddie Womsley (41), unemployed drunk and wife beater, had been shot to death in August by his wife Margie (39) shortly after the police had been called in on one of their many domestic abuse calls. He was survived by aforementioned wife and a son Liam (14) who had, along with his mother, been a frequent victim of his father’s drunken rages. Margie had plead guilty and been sentenced to time served. Everyone knew Eddie had been a rat bastard, and most of the town felt that they should have done something before she had had to fire a twenty-two into his skull and leave him to bleed out over the living room rug.

"Bingo," Dean said, looking at the brief obituary. "Quiet Oaks Cemetery."

“Salt and burn, right?” Sam asked.

Dean jumped in his chair and swore, and Sam hunched back guiltily, wishing he had stayed in the reading area like Dean had meant for him to. Then Dean turned to give Sam a wide, half-appraising, half-troubled look. His eyes rested on the book in Sam’s lap, then lifted back to his face.

“Sam,” he started, then blew out his breath and looked back at the computer screen. “Let’s talk about this in the car.”

Heart hammering, Sam returned The Two Towers to its shelf (he still had two or three books to read that Dean had bought, and he didn’t have a library card here) and followed Dean out.

When they were on either side of the Impala, Dean rested his forearms on top of the car and looked Sam straight in the eye. “Sam. You don’t have to do this.”

Sam looked back at him, waiting.

“I mean it,” Dean said, a little desperately now. “This is what I do, yeah—but even though you’re with me, you don’t gotta do it. Even in a basic salt-and-burn, there can be a hell of a lot of danger, and even experienced hunters can crack their walnut open on a gravestone. Nothing says you have to do this, okay? I won’t be mad—hell, I’d be impressed you’ve got the brains not to jump into this. It won’t change us, all right? I’ve taken on a hell of a lot worse cases on my own.”

Sam rested his arms and chest against the warm metal. He didn’t break Dean’s gaze, even as he wondered at the fierce earnestness in Dean’s face. It didn’t sound like Dean was saying he didn’t want him to come along (freaks mess things up, after all, he could be a hazard), and Sam wanted to go. He had to, because if Dean was going into danger, if Dean was risking his life and limb even on one of the easy hunts, Sam wanted to be right there with him.

“I don’t want to be left behind,” he said at last. “I know I don’t have to. I believe you. But I want to come along, Dean. I can help you dig, I can—help watch your back.” I can protect you, he didn’t say, because Dean was a hunter, he had been protecting himself for years, and he didn’t need a monster, no matter how devoted, watching his back. But Sam wanted that very very much. Sam took a steadying breath. “I know it can be dangerous, but—I’m not scared.”

Dean leaned back a little, taking in Sam’s words and expression. At last he nodded—a little grimly, not looking quite happy about it, but accepting. “Okay. If that’s what you want to do, Sam. I’d be glad for another pair of eyes.”

“Okay,” Sam said, and smiled a little, before opening the door and sliding with Dean into the Impala.

~*~

By the time they were getting ready to leave for the cemetery, Dean had had enough time to recapture all his nerves—even though Sam showed none whatsoever, despite the close eye Dean kept on him. The kid had been far more nervous at the raucous sports bar where they had had dinner last week. Now, after he finished gathering everything Dean listed, he sat on the other bed and waited expectantly.

“So, technically, we can walk into the nearest sheriff's office, flip out my ID, and they’d give us whatever excavating equipment we like,” Dean told him. “They’d even loan us the people to use it, and we could sit back in lawn chairs and drink rum and coke with those little umbrellas while they do the heavy lifting. A lot of hunters take that route. But that’s because they’re not just lazy-asses, but melon-heads. You do something flashy like that, call in the cops and the coroner, and it spooks the locals and sends up the supernatural equivalent of a signal flare for miles around: hunters are here. And if you don’t get the right spirit, or there’s an unexpected sequel, then every nasty in the area has the advantage. So my old ma—Winchesters do it the old-fashioned way: late at night, by hand, private, and if anyone comes bothering, then you flash the badge.”

Sam nodded. Dean picked up his shotgun, checking the chamber automatically before counting out ammo shells, until a new concern stopped him. He held up the shotgun, turning to Sam. “You know how to use one of these?”

Sam blinked at him. “No, Dean.”

Dean's brain tripped over, and then reset. Yeah, he was an idiot. When would it have ever been safe, or logical, for Sam to have learned how to shoot a gun? Maybe that just went to show how rarely Dean thought of him as a civilian, how he trusted him like he’d only ever trusted Dad and Dad's friends. "Yeah, it's loaded with rock salt," he said. "Good for sending ghosts packing. I should show you how to shoot. But, not tonight. Tonight I want to get this bastard before he does anything to that kid. You can remind me later."

"Sure, Dean," Sam replied, but if he’d said it with a little less enthusiasm, Dean would have had to check for his pulse. Dean figured he was going to have to remember to give the gun lesson—and maybe a few other self-defense basics—by himself.

Security on the cemetery was non-existent, and if there were any angry spirits around, they stayed the hell away. Sam was new to shovel-work, but Dean showed him a few tricks to break up the ground—damn lucky it wasn’t the middle of winter, frozen earth was always a bitch—and Sam set in with energy. With two people digging (Dean's gun resting on the edge of the tombstone where he could snatch it up in a second), they got to the coffin in near-record time. After that it was routine, Sam scattering the salt like he’d done it a hundred times before, Dean dumping gasoline over the casket like shitake sauce and throwing in a cheap lighter.

The fire roared up at once, flames flashing blue before settling into the usual yellow-orange, and Dean glanced at Sam’s face in the fire’s light. He stood with the handle of the shovel clasped between his hands, absorbed by watching the flames, a sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead, despite the cool early October night. He’d taken to the night’s work more naturally than anything he’d yet done in the real world, Dean realized. The thought twisted something funny inside him, in a way Dean couldn’t tell if it was good or bad.

“You did good,” Dean said at last. That was a pretty shitty summary for how awesome Sam had been, but it wasn’t like Dean had the words for that either. “Seriously. Don’t know if any other sixteen-year-old could keep his cool handling his first salt-and-burn.”

Sam smiled, and it lit up his whole face like an internal fire, transforming him from the frightened kid he usually was into someone far more confident. Hotter. Dean’s blood beat against his skin from the exhilaration of the work, the fire, and he had the sudden, irrational urge to walk around the cheerfully crackling grave, grab Sam and kiss him hard until the old bastard was nothing but ashes and the only light came from the stars and that blaze inside Sam which Dean had never thought he’d see. He shoved it back—not the time—and looked back into the grave. “I think the show’s over. Might as well fill it back in.”

The work went fast. Given how abandoned the cemetery felt (what, had the family gotten a discount by moving to the least popular boneyard?), and the unlikely odds of a remorseful widow showing up with flowers, no one might even know about this round of grave desecration.

But somehow, even after they’d packed away the shovels, Dean couldn’t start the car right away. Something niggled at the back of his mind, but the harder he tried to grab at it, the faster it slipped away. He sat, scowling at the high cemetery walls, until Sam glanced at him.

“Seemed too easy,” Dean muttered, not sure if it was an apology or an explanation. “Think we missed something? Could the guy have left something else behind?”

Sam considered. "There was a lot of blood," he said quietly. "You could see it in the first newsprint photos they pulled because it showed too much of the corpse. And the floors were wood, and fairly battered. That kind of surface makes it hard to get blood out, if it soaks in."

"Yeah," Dean said, finally sliding the key into the ignition. "I think we better check that out. Let's go over to the widow's—shit, I didn’t write down the address. Well, fuck, it’s a small town, probably anybody we ask knows where she—”

“611 Sycamore,” Sam said. Dean stared at him, and Sam smiled again, ducking his head. “I saw it on one of the r-reports you were looking at. And I brought a town map—the sign in the motel said they were free.” He pulled it out of the side pocket of the door.

“Well, damn,” Dean said, pole-axed for the second time that night. “Now you’re making me feel like a rookie.”

With Sam navigating from the map, they reached Sycamore Street fifteen minutes later. They had no trouble finding house 611: only one had the living room lights not only on, but flickering like a disco, and screams—a woman's, part anger, part terror, part despair—breaking into the night like a brick through shattering glass.

Well, shit. Talk about Winchester timing.

~*~

The Impala had barely stopped—Dean hit the brakes hard enough to throw Sam forward into his seatbelt, flat edge cutting into his neck—before Dean grabbed salt and the shotgun from the backseat and bolted for the house. "Stay here!" he shouted over his shoulder, then ran toward the screaming without another look back.

Sam froze, eyes locked on Dean’s back. He could hear a younger voice now too, probably the son Liam, screaming, "You let her fucking go! You let her go!" But even those screams, clear enough that Sam could understand the words, were almost overwhelmed by a man’s deep, spectral, half-mad laughter.

When Dean reached the door, he barely broke his stride to kick it in.

Sam had always known that Dean ran into danger fearlessly, without hesitation. Even without his stories about casually risking their necks against vampire nests and in spilled-beer bar fights, Sam would have known that someone as good and brave and determined as Dean wouldn’t flinch from a threat.

It only took Sam half a second (during which his hands were already unlocking his seatbelt and reaching for the door handle) to realize he would follow him, always.

When Sam rushed through the broken door, he was in time to see that Dean had just fired on the ghost point-blank, scattering his ectoplasmic form into sickly green motes of light, while the widow, Margie, blinked up at him, arms wrapped around her son. She was so far in shock that when dead Eddie flickered back into view behind Dean, her eyes didn't even track him, didn't give Dean even that much of a warning before the spirit slammed him into the wall with one energy-ridden punch.

Dead Eddie went in for the kill, the heavy ring on his right hand morphing into something almost like a claw as he pulled back his fist, a nasty smile curling his lip, and Sam didn't have time to slow down. He grabbed the iron poker from the scattered remains of the fireplace and swung it through the ghost’s head.

Too hard a swing would unbalance him. Too easy would give the ghost time to dodge the blow and go on the offensive. Sam weighted it just right, and the ghost fragmented as the cold iron passed through his insubstantial skull.

Dean had pulled himself to his knees, dragging the shotgun onto his lap, ready for the next attack. Sam glanced down at him just as Eddie vanished, while he shifted the poker to a more comfortable grip. Dean could have been angry or want Sam ready in a particular spot—he’d told him to stay, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have an idea of how best to use Sam now that he had disobeyed—but what he saw in Dean’s eyes made him almost drop his weapon in surprise.

Relief, gratitude, and amazement shone out of Dean’s eyes. And when his eyes moved to the weapon in Sam’s hand, he only smiled wider.

Sam looked away quickly, his heart beating almost as erratically as when Dean kissed him. No one had ever looked at him like that before, and he didn’t know exactly what it meant, but he was sure at the very least that Dean was glad and not angry that Sam had disobeyed him. It had never felt good before to break the rules. He was shaking from that look, from the crown of his head to his toes, and that had nothing to do with fear.

He was almost thankful for the distraction when Eddie reappeared, sliding his ham-hands around Margie’s neck and squeezing. Liam shouted and began beating at his father’s ghostly grip. His hands, flying straight through the ghost, only ended up striking his mother again and again while the monster grinned until his mouth was impossibly wide with laughter.

Sam had never been allowed actual weapons at FREACS, but he had practiced this lunge at least a few hundred times. The poker slid through the ghost’s chest, missing Margie’s cheek by bare inches.

“Damn nice, Sammy,” Dean said, twisting the cap off the lighter fluid he carried in his back pocket. “Can you hold the bastard off while I torch the floor?”

“Yeah.” Sam caught movement out of the corner of his eye and spun, slicing the ghost through the legs before he could fully materialize.

Dean dumped the fluid, pre-mixed with salt, liberally over the floor, and then pulled out his back-up lighter.

The ghost snarled and dove at Dean, shrieking like an enraged banshee, sweeping up picture frames, lamps, and books that followed his charge like broken boats drawn after a tidal wave.

There wasn’t room to get the poker up, not without hitting either Dean or the civilians. Sam threw himself between Dean and the monster without a second thought. If his death could save these civilians, if it could save Dean, then it was utterly and unquestionably worth it.

Eddie’s ugly grin was wide enough that Sam could see his cracked, yellowing molars splitting and sharpening, like he was a shark that could erupt new teeth. Sam felt the impact of the ghost’s hands, first over and then into his chest like being half-drowned in ice water, burning cold inside him, clawing at muscles and nerves, not just lungs, passing through his essence, searching for his staccato heart.

Sam felt the fingers find what they were looking for, locked through the lattice of his ribs, and close. He shut his eyes.

And then Dean lit the bastard up.

Sam felt the heat as the spirit burned, a warmth like feeling coming back into hands bruised and burning from the cold. Sam opened his eyes in time to see Eddie scream one last time, crinkle like wax paper held to a flame, and disappear.

Sam felt nothing, not up or down for a second, and then just as he realized that he was tilting, that he wasn’t going to be able to balance himself, he felt strong arms wrapping around his waist, a warm chest bracing his back, bringing him back to balance.

“Sammy, you okay?” Dean tucked his head toward Sam’s ear and Sam could hear the edge of worry in his voice, the tension in his arms.

“I’m fine,” Sam said, ready to be dropped. He was safe, he was fine, and Dean didn’t need to stay, just because Sam knew he would feel cold again without Dean wrapped around him.

To his shock, Dean’s hands tightened. He took a deep breath, and Sam felt it right where his neck and shoulder met. “You did great,” Dean said. “You swashbuckled that mother. And I’m fucking glad that bastard—“

“Dean, the fire,” Sam said. Flames were trying to claw their way through the center of Margie Womsley’s home.

“Shit. Yeah.” Dean loosened his hands and stepped away from Sam. That was different, utterly different from being pushed away. Sam shivered slightly and, still, it wasn’t something bad. “Yeah.” Dean dragged an already ragged curtain down from its broken rod and began stamping on the fire while the civilians huddled together and watched with wide eyes. Letting out a long breath, Sam finally relaxed his grip on the poker.

~

The house was old, the wood dry enough to light up from a cigarette ad, but they managed to stamp out the fire before it did more than burn away the bloodstain that was Dead Eddie’s last physical tie to the world.

The widow and the kid were shaken but grateful. Dean was just glad they were still breathing and the bastard hadn’t managed to strangle them to death before they arrived. The fact that they weren’t screaming or telling him and Sam to get the hell out of their house before they called the cops was icing on the cake. Life-saving heroics and ASC badge aside, civvies didn’t always have the best reaction to their first brush with the supernatural and those chasing it down. It was always a pain when they had to run like hell after a job because some shell-shocked civilian wouldn’t believe that they’d been trying to save their asses.

When I have to run like hell, Dean corrected himself. Sure, it might be him and Sam now, but he hadn’t even asked him if once was enough, hadn’t made sure that the grin on Sam’s face when Dead Eddie turned into charcoal hadn’t been some kind of nervous tic. Too soon to tell, too soon to start picking out curtains. Though the widow was going to have to do that soon, given the mess Dean had made of them putting out the fire.

“Thank you,” Margie said again, one hand on Dean’s arm, the other on Sam’s. “God, I mean, I can’t thank you enough. When I saw him and he was the same and going for Liam like he always—I couldn’t...I thought I’d...and then he.... God, thank you.”

Sam looked nervously at her hand on his arm, but he wasn’t bolting, twitching, or looking like he expected her to hit him, so Dean could concentrate on projecting a hundred percent confidence and shooting the widow a cocky—and, because they’d won, reassuring—grin.

“Just part of the job,” Dean assured her. “No trouble at all. Sorry we were late, had a little digging to deal with on the other side of town.”

She gave him a tight smile. “Should have scrubbed that damn floor long before this. It’s just...easier to throw a rug over things sometimes than to deal with them, like I didn’t know that comes back to punch you in the face.” Her laugh wasn’t quite stable. “Maybe you shouldn’t have put out that damn fire. We’re not staying here, not...no more.”

Dean glanced at the kid, Liam, but he just looked relieved.

“Well, that’s why we’re here. Saving people, hunting things, since 1979. You can call the ASC hotline or your local law enforcement if you need anything else. But honestly, my advice is that you first get some friends or family to come pick you up tonight. Don’t hang around and don’t be alone.” Maybe some help like that would have taken care of her rat-bastard husband before he had to die twice.

Dean kept the smile on his face all the way out the door and to the Impala, one hand on the small of Sam’s back to make sure he was with him, and then burned rubber out of there.

About four miles out of town, after easing his speed to a respectable five over—the Impala deserved to go fast, but moderation kept the cops too bored to bother him—he glanced over to Sam to see how he was taking it.

Sam grinned at him, meeting his eyes easily and without hesitation. “We burned that bastard,” he said, and while the curse word sounded strange on his tongue, Dean heard the same deep satisfaction in Sam’s voice that he felt every time he took a supernatural scumbag off the streets.

“Hell yeah, we did,” Dean agreed. “You were hot in there. The way you handled that poker. Wanna do it again sometime?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and then, stopped, just stopped when he realized he was flirting. With Sam. And, while he meant every word (Sam had looked fucking hot, and Dean wanted to kiss the hell out of him every second they weren’t lighting ghosts on fire), for the first time he didn’t feel like a pervert, because Sam didn’t look like he would break. He was just grinning, his hands trembling slightly in what Dean recognized as adrenaline crash.

He grinned brighter, a combination of relief, hope, and sheer energy in his face. “Could we?”

No matter how good this felt right now, the prospect of jumping down that road still made Dean nervous. Some of that must have shown on his face, because Sam’s eyes dropped and his hands slid between his knees. Dean could see him pulling himself together, fighting down the rush, and he hated that, but the buzz from the hunt was strong enough that he didn’t immediately feel the need to punch something. He could think about what Sam needed, instead of just how angry it made him that Sam was still so afraid to admit what he wanted.

“I l-l-liked it,” Sam said in a rush, not looking at him, words starting out strong and fading almost to a whisper. “I l-l-liked helping you and being useful and…and it was g-good. Seeing something…evil and s-stopping it. That felt good. I’ve never felt good after a fight before.”

Dean wondered who Sam had been fighting, how much he hurt them, what they had done to deserve it—because any bastard in a fight with Sam deserved what was coming to him, Dean was pretty damn sure, just because it was Sam. “If you’re sure,” he said, “we could stop those bastards together. You know, as a team. As Winchesters.”

Dean would never forgive himself if anything ever happened to Sam, but he was going to teach him how to hunt anyway, even though it was a fucked-up life that sane, well-balanced people should avoid if they wanted to stay that way. He was going to teach Sam how to be a hunter because he had asked, and because Dean wanted that too. Dean wanted a life with Sam—romantically, brotherly, spiritually, hell, whatever—but hunting was the only life that Dean had.

He’d have changed for Sam. He’d have tried, at least. But now Sam had asked. And actually run after him to kill a ghost. That was a good start, and more choice than Dean had ever had.

Sam watched him, eyes wide. “Really?”

“You were awesome, Sam,” Dean said. “You can watch my back any day.”

~

After running into the house, Sam’s constant worry about disappointing Dean vanished. Any thought but keep the ghost off Dean and protect the civilians was completely buried, and for the first time in a long time he wasn’t afraid, not of the reals, not that Dean would find him useless, not about anything but that the ghost would get close enough to hurt Dean—though even then, in the back of his mind, Sam hadn’t really believed that Dean would get hurt. Because he was Dean.

It had felt good, not being afraid. It had felt good to have a purpose and be useful, for what felt like the first time in his life. He had killed things before, destroyed things, hurt things, been hurt, been afraid, he had even helped other monsters—don’t think about Kayla, you can’t help her now, you need to keep yourself together, need to be good for Dean—but never before had he been able to look in the eyes of a real woman and a child, and know that he had helped remove a little bit of that fear from their lives.

He hadn’t even been terrified because they were reals, that they might find out he was a monster too. He had helped them because he had made the choice to run after Dean. The woman had touched him on the shoulder and smiled at him—a stress-panicked smile, like Kayla’s after a fight or one vampire’s to another, but a smile anyway—and the boy had just looked at them, and Sam had known that they were grateful because he done something good, saving them.

And then he had asked—even that hadn’t been hard, while adrenaline pumped through his veins—Dean to let him help him. To help him save people.

A ‘yes’ would have kept him high for the rest of the day, would have been the best thing anyone had ever said to him.

But Dean had looked at him, eyes bright and charming and sweet, and had smiled the smile that made Sam’s heart beat too fast and him flush from ears to fingertips. “You can watch my back any day,” Dean had said.

And for a few minutes Sam was almost too happy to breathe. He felt too warm and dizzy and—God I would do anything for you, but if you smiled at me nothing could possibly hurt—for a moment that seemed like it would stretch into infinity, everything in the world was good.


	19. Chapter 19

“So, I’ve been thinking. If we’re gonna do this thing, we’re gonna do it right.”  
  
Sam gave Dean a quizzical look, his fork speared into the center of three syrup-soaked waffles. “This thing is...hunting?”  
  
“Yeah. I mean.” Dean swallowed, made a vague gesture with his nearly-empty coffee mug. “If you still got any interest in doing it again. I’d understand if it’s...well, not something you really want to make a habit.”  
  
Sam watched him, eyes sharp. He looked like he was trying to pick the words apart, searching for some meaning hidden within them. “I want to help you,” he said at last, slowly, like he wasn’t sure where the problem was.  
  
“But you don’t gotta—” Dean glanced around, lowered his voice. “There’s lots of ways you can help, you know? Researching, watching the Impala...I don’t know, holding down the fort and stuff. You don’t gotta be on the front lines.”  
  
Sam’s brow knitted, but his eyes never left Dean’s face. A couple months ago, Dean wouldn’t have believed Sam could follow that rule so well. Now he wouldn’t be willing to bet on which of them would look away first, at least not in a conversation like this. “I don’t want to stay behind. I’m not scared, Dean. And I can help you. You said I d-did, the other night.”  
  
“Yeah.” Dean couldn’t stop a grin. He looked away, tried to take a swig of coffee, and realized that there wasn’t anything left in his mug. “Yeah, you rocked that joint. Badass out of nowhere, right when that bastard was gonna—yeah, but you don’t need to  _keep_ throwing yourself at the baddies, you know that, right, Sam? I’m real proud, yeah, but it’s dangerous and you don’t  _have_ to...you get what I’m saying?”  
  
Sam nodded slowly. “Yes, Dean. You’ve been saying it a lot.”  
  
“Right,” he said, and poured himself more coffee. “Guess I have. It’s just really, really,  _really_ important to me that you know that, Sam.”  
  
Sam took a small bite of waffle and studied him. “Are we going to be hunting more now?”  
  
“Well.” Dean took a deep breath. “Guess it matters what comes up. Dunno how much I’ll be  _looking_ for cases. My calendar is full up just showing off all the wacky corners of the USA, Sam, but if something’s just  _there_... Hunting...it’s kinda what I  _do_ , Sam.”  
  
“Of course, it always has been.” Sam almost sounded dismissively impatient, like Dean was stupid to point out something so obvious, like his hunting was a fact of the universe.  
  
Dean had a sudden picture of himself, standing with his feet apart in the Freak Camp yard, telling the small boy crouched in front of him that he was an honest-to-God hunter. For a second, he thought his breakfast might surge back up.  
  
“You shouldn’t have stopped,” Sam said, starting to frown again. “N-not for me. So it’s good for you to start again. And I want to help you.” That  _want_ carried the slightest emphasis—Dean figured that in anyone else’s voice that would have been a hint, a pointed remark, but in Sam’s soft, quiet voice it was a declaration of independence and strength.  _I’m finally telling you what I want, just like you ask me to every day. Listen._  
  
“Okay,” Dean said, and this time didn’t try to hide his slowly growing grin. “But we gotta do it right.”  
  
Sam looked at him half expectantly, half nervously through the rest of the meal, but no way was Dean going to start talking about hardcore training and ghost-ganking in public. As soon as they were settled into the motel, door locked and bolted—Sam hadn’t stopped watching him the entire time, as though he thought that if he blinked Dean would disappear from him—he spun a chair around to face Sam, who sat on the edge of the bed, and launched into the mission overview.  
  
"Before we step foot into another graveyard, you’re gonna be a ghost-blasting Schwarzenegger. I’m gonna teach you how to handle a gun, a flamethrower, a taser, and every kind of blade I’ve got in the Impala. You'll learn how to take guns apart and put them back together, how to load, clean, wear, and handle them like they're attached to your own hands. Hesitation can lose you a finger or a major organ in this business, or your head if you’re not lucky, so you’ve gotta get to the point where there’s less than a heartbeat between thought and action, maybe a millisecond to choose between fight, flight, and freeze, and there’s no way in hell I’m gonna take you out to face some ugly-ass fang-face with an unhinging jaw, or whatever else we meet, unless you’re totally prepared. Got that, Sammy? I didn't get you out of Freak Camp to see you cut down by some asshole you could have put in the ground."  
  
Sam gave a quick nod, hands clasped together over his knees. "I understand, Dean."  
  
"Good." Dean sat back, relaxing a fraction. "Good. We’ll also cover first aid, the whole works—or at least what I know, which would probably make a med student order a double brandy—until you can recite the hundred most common supernatural poisons and their cures backwards and forwards, wrap up a gash, and treat a concussion. We aren't taking another hunt until you can do that, too." Sam nodded again. Dean chewed on the inside of his cheek, wondering what else he needed to cover. "How much PT did you get in camp?"  
  
"PT?" Sam repeated, a tentative question.  
  
"Physical training."  
  
Sam's shoulders stiffened, his eyes dropping as a familiar blankness shuttered over his face. After a beat, some signs of life came back into him, but he still seemed stiff, a little off, and did not meet Dean’s eyes. "W-what kind of physical training?" he asked quietly.  
  
Dean took a moment to lock down the surge of anger. The question flashed across his mind an image of Sam's back as clear as though it were bared again before him in the light of day. His stomach flipped, a second sick roil that threatened to expel the recent pancakes as he thought of the kind of _physical training_ Sam had experienced. It was a miracle, frankly, that Sam didn’t look afraid. Cautious, uncertain, yes, but not terrified. Dean could almost believe that Sam knew Dean hadn't meant anything he'd experienced before. But the nausea and disgust in his stomach made him take a long moment just to ensure his voice would be steady, calm. "Like running. Push-ups. Stuff to improve endurance and strength."  
  
Sam's eyes flickered back up to him. "No, we didn't have anything like that."  
  
Dean nodded, not surprised. "Well, we'll start a routine. Light at first, I'm not going to push you too hard, we'll see where we can start. You gotta tell me if you start to feel dizzy or you need a break, okay, Sam? Always, no matter what we're doing. I'm not going to be angry, even if we’re stopping for ice cream every five minutes and you can’t get more than ten feet without a breather. Only way I will be upset is if you end up collapsing and I have to carry you back after flipping my shit because you didn't say anything beforehand. But I won't be angry at  _you_ ," he added quickly.  
  
A too-rare smile flitted across Sam's face. "Okay, Dean."  
  
"Good. Excellent." Dean reached across to rub Sam's hand, looking him straight in the eyes. "I don't ever want to see you hurt, got that? That's the point. If you're gonna be hunting with me, if you really want to do that—there'll always be danger, we're gonna pick up bumps and bruises and stitches—but hopefully, if we're a team, and I watch out for you and you watch out for me—we'll keep ourselves in one piece."  
  
Sam’s smile widened the way that made Dean's heart double-thump as it did when he actually made his kid look happy, and Sam turned his hand over, catching Dean's fingers and threading them together with his own. "Sounds good to me."  
  
Dean had always figured Sam was a tough kid, someone who could walk through hell and come out with the same strong, white-knuckled grip on his life and his sanity—he’d survived FREACS, hadn’t he? And if that wasn’t hell, Dean didn’t know it—but when they actually started Sam’s endurance workouts, Dean was floored. The kid didn't look like he  _had_ any muscle or fat—still just skin and bone, even after months and months of regular meals, the lines of his shoulder blades pushing up like wings through every T-shirt—and he said himself he hadn't had any experience. But when Dean started them off light—one-mile runs, push-ups and sit-ups in increments of five—Sam didn't get winded, rarely tired, turning to him expectantly every time Dean tried to slow down, as though to say _is that all?_  Dean tried not to think about Sam's other  _physical training_ , but he supposed it had given him a different kind of endurance.  
  
Sam had promised to warn him the second it felt like too much, but Dean kept an eagle eye on him anyway. He didn’t doubt Sam’s promise for a second, but he wasn’t sure if Sam would notice his own limits before he keeled over on a run. So they ran, and stopped often, guzzling water and Gatorade so frequently that they almost needed a bathroom more often than a breather.  
  
Sam's speed at learning weaponry made Dean repeat his standard compliments so many times, increasing each time in fervency and admiration, that Sam flushed redder from embarrassment than exertion. Sam paid precise attention as Dean first explained all the parts and functions of the various firearms he kept in the trunk, then showed him basic safety procedures for using, carrying, and storing them. Sam repeated everything exactly without a single deviation, and remembered the steps better than Dean did sometimes (sure, some things become instinct after a while, but it wasn’t like he always did things in the same order, or thought about them the same way, so sue him). When they actually went out to shoot some shit (empty beer cans on a fence, and a license plate that would get him arrested for burglary in four states and grave desecration in another three), it took Sam a few tries to adjust for the recoil and weight of the gun, but pretty soon he was reloading and shooting nearly as fast and accurately as Dean.  
  
It was seriously badass. Dean told him so at length and with enthusiasm, until Sam was ducking his head to hide his grin and red cheeks.  
  
He learned first-aid even quicker, absorbing the information as fast as Dean chowed down cheeseburgers, with the kind of brain-osmosis Dean had wished he had in school. After so many warnings about how there were no deadlines for Sam to learn anything, that any training they did was at his own pace, Dean found himself struggling to think of things to teach, ways to present the lessons of a lifetime in a compressed form that Sam would understand without having lived it. Sam’s comprehension, even those days that Dean had to struggle through an explanation, was impressive to the point of unnerving.  
  
Only one area Dean knew Sam wasn't ready for yet, and that was sparring with him. He wanted to see what Sam was capable of at hand-to-hand combat, especially after what he’d seen of Sam’s quick reflexes—his moves with that poker had been gorgeous, practically a work of art, an engine in motion—but even his tentative suggestion that Sam could practice sparring against him brought the worst kind of blind panic to Sam's eyes, as though Dean had suggested he whip the skin off his own back and look happy about it. Dean wasn’t such an idiot that he thought Sam would be capable of raising his hand against him in any way, no matter how lightly or playfully. So that was one project for the backburner, and in the meantime, Dean would just have to hope they didn’t end up in a bind where Sam would  _need_ the serious hand-to-hand.  
  
There were more literal kind of binds too, and  _those_ Dean didn’t want to put off until they came back to bite them in the ass. Dean had grown up fiddling with knots and lockpicks and handcuffs, John routinely timing him on old and new combinations. It had been a game, though Dean supposed most kids didn’t get handcuffed to a radiator with five minutes to uncuff themselves, find the hidden weapon, escape the room, and make it to the Impala’s rendezvous in time to get their McDonald’s bag while the fries were still hot.  
  
He didn’t kid himself that he could make those lessons fun for Sam. Took him ages—way after he’d figured out how to bring up tourniquets and knife-throwing in the least threatening way possible—to even think about how he would introduce Sam to a pair of handcuffs. He began slowly, teaching Sam different knots, just a length of rope wrapped round the arm and back of a chair, around door handles and hotel luggage stands. Sam handled the rope cautiously, letting it rest between his fingertips, but he was precise and quick with Dean’s orders (Dean had counted on that, but he tried not to think about it; he was only teaching Sam what was good for him,  _important_ to know in this line of work, what would make him stronger and keep him alive).  
  
He had never yet wrapped the rope around his own wrists or Sam’s. Handcuffs were easier, less claustrophobic—they’d start there.  
  
Dean began with a roundabout conversation about cops. He could admit to himself, if not always to anyone else, that he might have a bit of a prejudice against legal law enforcement professionals (fucking amateurs in the field, complete mess when a ghost showed up and complete  _douches_ if you asked his opinion, which almost no one did because they’d all heard it before), so Sam had probably heard him talk about cops at length previously. Maybe not what they were actually technically supposed to do, but instead Dean’s personal experiences with law enforcement, minus the actual examples of him getting grabbed when he was a kid and Dad ending up with a bullet in his shoulder after a job went wrong. Dean tried to focus on the practicalities, the ways not to piss off authority figures, to play nice and go slow and easy (and, sure, maybe Dean didn’t follow his own advice there, maybe he tended to get even mouthier than usual when presented with someone who  _thought_ they knew all the answers but was really neck-deep in shit he didn’t understand, but Sam didn’t need to be harassed just because he followed Dean’s questionable example, which was always more for the sake of making a point and following up on decade-old indignities anyway).  
  
“Cops always got the same basic set of tools. A radio, a nightstick, a gun in a holster, sometimes a taser, and a pair of handcuffs.” Dean pointed to each item as he named it: the gun, taser, and nightstick on the bed, then the clock radio on the bedside table because he hadn’t thought to get a walkie-talkie out of the Impala. He drew the handcuffs out of his duffel last, setting them on the table between them, and Sam looked at them. His poker face was on, had been for most of the conversation aside from a twitch of his eyelids when Dean had mentioned the nightstick. Dean had experience with Sam’s poker faces, some of the best he’d ever seen on anyone, including John, and he could almost be certain when it was a thin veneer before sheer terror. They weren’t quite there yet.  
  
“These aren’t so bad.” Dean picked them up, twirling them around his index finger. “Way easier than rope. You can pick ‘em with just about anything, maybe even a blade of grass if it’s stiff enough. Though a paperclip’s a lot easier.” He held up one from his pocket, then slid it across to Sam. “Go ahead and unbend it.”  
  
Sam picked it up, and his fingers shook slightly as they straightened out the paperclip. Dean took it back and showed Sam how to insert the tip into the lock, how to jiggle and twist, until the cuffs snapped open. “Piece of cake,” he said, and snapped them shut again. “Wanna give ‘em a try?”  
  
Sam drew a deep slow breath, rubbed his palms on his jeans, and took the cuffs and paperclip from Dean. His hands were definitely shaking now, and it took him a few seconds to even get the bit of metal into the hole. Watching, Dean made an effort not to hold his breath—like  _that_ would help at all—and fought the urge to snatch the cuffs back and save Sam the agony. Instead he offered a few careful bits of advice, trying to strike a balance between putting Sam at ease and not distracting him. It took Sam over a minute, and when the cuffs did snap open, he released a breath and pulled back in his chair, rubbing his palms again on his jeans as though the metal had burned him.  
  
Dean swept the cuffs back into his bag, then reached across the empty table for Sam’s hands. After a moment, Sam placed his hands in Dean’s.  
  
“Hey,” Dean said. “You okay?” Stupid-ass question, like Dean didn’t have eyes to see or hadn’t learned a damn thing over these last months. Sometimes it still felt like he hadn’t, like every tip or tool he’d picked up to help Sam cope was nothing but a plastic Cracker Jack talisman. But he hoped Sam knew what this meant: a basic question of whether they were spiraling toward another panic attack and meltdown on the floor, or if Dean was getting smart enough to know when he could try a stunt like this without destroying weeks’ of progress.  
  
Sam nodded, though he didn’t quite meet Dean’s eyes.  
  
“That’s all we’re gonna do today, all right? It’ll get easier. You know how cops use ‘em, and it’s just—it happens sometimes, hunters rub cops the wrong ways, tend to walk over some polished official toes. So sometimes guys like us find ourselves in a police station cuffed to some asswipe’s desk, and meanwhile there’s a pissed-off spirit bulldozing a house and terrifying the neighbors. You don’t have time to explain and fill out eight pages of paperwork. So you gotta slip out the cuffs, crack a window, and shimmy down a drain pipe.”  
  
Sam swallowed, still not meeting Dean’s eyes. His fingers trembled in Dean’s, his grip loose to the point of non-existence, just  _there_.  
  
“Hey,” Dean said, quieter. “Can you tell me?”  
  
Sam drew in and released another breath, not quite steady. “It’s just,” he said, so softly, “in—back there. If, if a freak tried to get out, of anything—” He shut his eyes and shook his head quickly.  
  
Dean tightened his hands around Sam’s. They hadn’t had many of these conversations; what had gone down in FREACS was still untested ground. The fact that Sam even volunteered this much set Dean’s heart thrumming with adrenaline. “What would happen, Sam?”  
  
Sam didn’t look at him, eyes shut hard, face turned away as though stinging from a blow. “Lose a hand,” he whispered, barely audible.  
  
Dean sucked in his breath, squeezing Sam’s hands until he realized his nails could probably cut straight through Sam’s skin and he would never so much as whimper. He let go abruptly, but didn’t have the heart to actually stop touching Sam, to stop trying to offer some kind of comfort for all the fucked-up years when Dean hadn’t saved him. Instead he rubbed at Sam’s palms and swore in a low steady stream of invective. It was soothing, he hoped.  
  
“That’s not how it works here,” he said at last, when he felt ready for sentences again. “No one—no cop, or bureaucrat or smug-ass sheriff, _no one_ —is allowed to do that, no matter what the fuck is going on. The possibility isn’t even on the books, and fuckwads don’t walk around with people-axes. That won’t happen to you, okay, Sam?”  
  
Sam nodded a little, jerkily. He still hadn’t opened his eyes.  
  
“Yeah, well, always carry a couple paperclips on you, all right? It’s a good rule of thumb for making like Houdini, and you never know when you’ll  _actually_ have to clip papers together. You don’t believe me, let me tell you about Tulsa sometime, that was one hell of a weird case. We’ll keep working on this, when you’re up for it, and pretty soon you’ll be picking locks in your sleep, and wasn’t  _that_ fun for John when I was a kid.” Dean reached out for Sam’s face, stroking his cheek, wishing he would look back at him. “You still with me, Sammy?”  
  
Sam turned his head, even without the pressure of Dean’s hands, and opened his eyes. They were sad, and shrouded with pain, but just the fact that Sam was  _looking_ at him sent a rush of relief through Dean. And then when Sam smiled, wobbly as it was, there was no fucking question that the Winchesters were on the top of the world.  
  
It was slow going, weeks and weeks of practice and training and talking and eating, crappy TV and driving through mountain ranges and forests. They discussed the principles of questioning people, and started taking tiny jobs, the sorts of things that, to Dean’s practiced eye, looked more weird than supernatural—though he still wasn’t sure about those sketchy lights at Carhenge—while Sam gradually got more comfortable with people and the idea of interviewing. Even when he stayed silent behind Dean, taking notes and not really offering an opinion even when they went back to the hotel, it felt like a win every time Sam could be around people and keep breathing.  
  
~*~  
  
Dean looked up curiously from his notepad, his expression a perfect mold, almost to the point of parody, of sincerity and concentration. Sam wasn’t sure what the witness thought about the expression, but he personally believed that if he’d ever looked at a guard that way, he’d have gotten slapped at least. “Exactly how long have your chickens been misbehaving according to moon phases, Mr. Havers?”  
  
Either the rules were different for reals, or the farmer wasn’t as good as Sam at seeing the quiet scorn and amusement underneath Dean’s tone. He answered very seriously, with a hint of confusion wrinkling his eyes. “‘Bout two months now, they’s been acting funny every couple o’ weeks.”  
  
“Has there been any funny stuff, bad eggs, demonic signs, foaming at the mouth?”  
  
“Well, there’s a few bad eggs in every batch, but, no, nothing else like that as I can recall. Don’t want no trouble from the ASC here. Who you say you’s from again?”  
  
“The Weekly World News” Dean lied and grinned, making the last few marks on his legal pad. Sam, from his secure place behind Dean’s shoulder, could see that he’d taken a couple of notes, mainly about the security on the farm and the scuff marks on the chicken house—or coop? Sam thought it was a coop, not a house, dogs had houses—and a fairly stylistic sketch of a chicken foaming at the mouth, complete with little satanic horns and a trident, possibly a pitchfork.  
  
“My wife reads the Weekly,” the man said. “Dinna think our chickens were famous enough to rate a reporter from the Enquirer. And what’s with the boy?”  
  
Dean had told Sam to watch everything, to keep his eyes off the ground and on his surroundings, to think about everything he saw, especially anything the witness said so that Sam could deduce from even the smallest clues what might actually be going on. The first couple of times they had gone to question witnesses (question  _reals_ , demand answers, hide what he was), it had been horrible. Sam had held off a couple panic attacks only by strength of will and the knowledge that their current job, no matter how innocuous it was turning out to be, would be completely ruined if he collapsed to the ground, shaking and gasping. Now, by their fourth interview, he was getting better at watching his surroundings, better at following Dean without retreating into his own head, and had even managed to notice things that Dean hadn’t (or said he hadn’t) a couple of times.  
  
But there was still no way he would be able to keep his eyes locked on the current real’s face when he was talking about Sam, when he was calling attention to his existence, and clearly not in a good way.  
  
Sam’s grip on Dean’s jacket (carefully hidden behind Dean’s back, hopefully where Mr. Havers couldn’t see him clinging) tightened, and he breathed very carefully, gaze locked on his toes, running through all of Dean’s promises about what wouldn’t happen, the Impala’s location, and any possible weapons that Mr. Havers could be carrying in case they had to run, in case he suspected the truth.  
  
But Dean just grinned at the question, his half-assed facade of a polite reporter vanishing into cocky cheerfulness as he threw an arm over Sam’s shoulders. “Sammy here’s my brother.”  
  
Strange to feel safe being touched, to feel that Dean could protect him from anything and everything even when Sam knew that the current position of their arms made getting to their weapons harder, that if the rea—the civilian tried anything, their reaction time would be slowed because of the embrace. But he still felt the muscles in his back unlock, the jump of fear from being  _noticed_ fade into the background at Dean’s touch.  
  
All that was sorely tested when Mr. Havers frowned. “Ain’t a kid that age supposed to be in school?”  
  
Sam swallowed, painfully. He and Dean should have thought of that, prepared some kind of cover, because of him this entire job was going to be blown and those chickens might keep—  
  
“Parent-teacher conferences,” Dean lied smoothly. “Sammy had a long weekend, I figured I’d steal him for the trip down here, get in a little brother-to-brother bonding. Anyway, I think I have what I need, Mr. Havers, thank you very much for your time.”  
  
Still looking confused, Mr. Havers shook Dean’s hand, frowned at Sam, and then Dean hustled them off the property and back to the Impala, where they pulled out of the country lane, back to the highway toward the nearby small town.  
  
When they got back to their lodgings—a smaller than usual mom-and-pop that offered free Belgian waffles if you got up early enough, and had three six-packs of a local microbrew in the common fridge—Dean dropped his bag and sprawled onto the afghan-topped bed, arms spread. “I just can’t get freaked out by chicken McNuggets, no matter how nasty. So, Sam, what’d you think?”  
  
Sam looked up from carefully tucking Dean’s notebook back into his duffel, taking off his shoes and putting them in the hand-carved shoe rack near the door. “Mr. Havers didn’t seem to believe that his chickens were haunted. He implied that it was fairly normal for this kind of b-bad temper to manifest occasionally, and was honestly confused about w-why we were asking. He was suspicious of you at times, I th-think he knew you weren’t being completely upfront about the reason behind your questions, and he thought it s-strange that I was there. A-also, given how nervous the nephew was when we mentioned the chickens, and w-what his friends said about his partying during their interviews, it d-d-doesn’t seem like this is something...supernatural.”  
  
“Yup,” Dean said. “I totally agree. Looks like this case is another non-event.” He sighed and pulled himself up to rest against the headboard. He flipped through the TV Guide—the bed-and-breakfast TV only got eight channels, but Dean liked to check the guide anyway and talk about all the paid programming and bad movies that he could be watching if they only had cable—and then tossed it back on the bed and reached for his wallet.  
  
“Hey, Sam, you feel up to getting us a couple beers from the fridge?” Dean fished a couple dollars out of his wallet and handed them to Sam, who frowned at them, and then looked at Dean, who grinned. “Well, get me one of those Ladies’ Blue Bloomers microbrews, and yourself a root beer. It’s all got ‘beer’ in it, right?”  
  
“I don’t think root beer is alcoholic, Dean,” Sam said, but he was smiling when he left.  
  
Intellectually, Sam knew that the people who ran the bed and breakfast—a plump old lady with a huge layered pile of white hair and equally white, even teeth, and a rickety old man with only two yellowed teeth and no hair at all—wouldn’t be upset with him for going into their fridge. The elderly lady had told him and Dean straight off when they arrived that the food and drink in the kitchen was for everyone, that they should just pay attention to the food prices attached to the fridge by cat magnets, but Sam still felt slightly nervous even stepping into the room.  
  
But still, today was a day for bravery. He’d been quiet and attentive during the interview—not panicked and borderline hyperventilating like during the first few, until Dean had asked him if he wanted to wait in the car, and he had retreated to the Impala with the taste of pain and shame in his mouth beneath the overwhelming relief he felt from being away from the reals—and this time he’d been able to tell Dean about his observations without stuttering too much over the words, and they had been  _right_ , and Dean had smiled at him. It was always good, always a relief when Dean agreed with some conclusion that Sam had offered, some theory that he had been able to draw from words and tone and body language, even when, as they did more and more interviews, Sam was realizing that Dean didn’t always know everything. He missed small clues, occasionally ignored what the interviewees thought of  _him_ in favor of pressing his questions, and couldn’t see behind his back or close to his side. Sam wouldn’t say that Dean was  _wrong_ , ever, that was ridiculous, but he missed things, and it felt good to know that he, Sam, was there to catch those details for him.  
  
Sam still checked the kitchen before walking in. Empty. He could breathe a sigh of relief, drop the dollar bills in the box marked with a smiley face and a money sign, grab a beer and a root beer from the fridge, and then take the stairs two at a time back up to the room.  
  
Dean smiled when he pushed the door open, and Sam had to stop for a minute. That was the smile just for him—the one that said Dean hadn’t been completely sure who was going to come through that door, that he had been ready for a completely different response if a stranger walked in. But the sight of Sam brought  _that_ smile, that spread from Dean’s beautiful lips to his eyes.  
  
He took the beer that Sam held out to him, and their fingers touched. Sam felt a flush over his face and neck that matched the flutter in his stomach, the same he felt every time Dean touched him, ran a hand over his shoulder, brushed his fingers over his wrist. He sat next to Dean on the wide, short bed, held out his root beer for Dean to pop that cap off too, and tapped the neck to Dean’s bottle.  
  
Dean took a long swig and sighed happily. “Well, the job’s all wrapped up, but I figure we’ll stick around here tonight at least. I don’t have any place in particular to be after this one, and we’re paid up through tomorrow, so no reason to head out too soon. So, you want to work on picking?”  
  
Sam leaned his head against the backboard, keeping his breathing even, his heart rate as close to normal as he could so that if Dean reached for his hand or his wrist, he wouldn’t feel the difference immediately. It didn’t matter how many times he practiced, or how happy Dean looked afterward, grinning widely with a thousand variations of  _you were awesome_ , and _badass work, Sam_  on his lips; Sam felt that same old clawing fear, the knowledge of what happened to a freak that tried to get free, someone who dared even  _think_ about getting out of a lock. Images of those consequences (guards shouting and holding him down as another fetched a saw, taunting him before starting the slow, excruciating cut) had started popping up in his nightmares, too, even though those weren’t happening nearly as frequently as they had before.  
  
It was almost too much, more than he wanted to do today. But it wasn’t about what Sam wanted. It should never be about what he wanted, but about how quickly he could do what Dean wanted, what he needed so that Sam could be as useful as possible on a hunt, so that they could go on a  _real_  hunt and not keep asking old men about chickens that Dean had suspected weren’t possessed the first time that the nephew’s friends had mentioned the parties they’d thrown on the farm. Sam wanted to save people. And he understood, intellectually if not instinctively, that if he wanted to save reals, there might be a time, against a vampire, a shifter, or some other supernatural thing, that he would have to save himself before he would be any use to them.  
  
“Okay,” he said.  
  
Dean smiled and leaned closer, almost as if he would kiss Sam, his green eyes brighter. “Sweet.” Then he rolled off the bed toward the dresser where he kept his duffel, pulled the handcuffs out, and slapped one cuff over his own wrist.  
  
When he came back, sprawling down over the too-short bed with his boots hanging off the end, Sam had already unfolded the paperclip from his pocket. When Dean held out his wrist, the open end of the cuffs dangling like he’d already escaped from a distant prison, Sam took his hand with all the care he always felt for Dean’s person, the worry and anticipation boiling together.  
  
He took one deep breath, eyes closed, reminding himself that if he couldn’t do this, nothing bad would happen. Dean would use the key he kept in his other hand and free himself, and they’d watch bad television until Dean decided they should go to sleep, and it would be  _fine_. And then he focused on Dean’s hand, on the thin band of metal confining his wrist, on  _breaking_ that. And slowly, with each click of the pin within the mechanism, that fear faded away.  
  
~  
  
Eventually, he and Sammy moved up to actually hooking the other end of the cuffs through the slats in the bed frame, Dean’s wrist dangling from the thin metal chain. Dean had noticed early on that certain positions of the cuffs made Sam more nervous, which in turn made it harder for him to actually work the locks. On one hand, the fear that filled Sam’s eyes, the way his hands shook around his makeshift lockpick, made Dean want to throw the cuffs in the Mississippi, punch someone’s face in (maybe his own), or wrap Sam in his arms and never let go. On the other, it was good (or at least practical) to know that Sam could pick a lock in various stages of panic. And given that the one time Sam  _didn’t_ seem to be afraid had been when he was shoving an iron poker through dead Eddie, Dean was going to pretend (for now at least) that hunting wouldn’t be an entire  _other_ level of panic.  
  
Sam was curled over Dean’s wrist, twisting around with the paperclip, when Dean’s phone went off.  
  
Sam jumped back, and Dean moved toward the phone before the cuff brought him up short. When he glanced back, Sam was breathing slowly and carefully, but didn’t seem to be having a panic attack. The phone kept ringing.  
  
“Hey, Sam, could you hand me my cell?” Dean grinned and rattled the handcuff, already digging the key out of his pocket. “I’m kind of tied up right now.”  
  
Sam tried to turn his flinch from the rattle into a nod, before getting up to pick the blinking phone off the nightstand and bring it over.  
  
Dean quickly checked the ID, and felt flash of relief at the name before he flicked open the phone. “Hey, Bobby!”  
  
Sam caught Dean’s eye and gestured to the door, made a book-opening gesture that Dean interpreted as him going to read in the living room downstairs. Dean nodded, waving an okay at him before tuning back in to what Bobby was saying.  
  
“—it’s been a few weeks of radio silence since you left Jim’s, and I thought I’d check on you.”  
  
“Oh, we’re awesome.” Dean spun the key ring around his finger, then examined the end closely for tarnish.  
  
“Yeah?” Bobby sounded more than a little suspicious, and Dean rolled his eyes. The guy always worried. But then he remembered how they had left Bobby’s, Sam in full-blown panic mode, Dean pretty jittery himself, and maybe a little bit of concern made sense in a situation like this.  
  
“Yeah. No kidding, Bobby, Jim was unbelievable. Total professional with Sam, worked enough hoodoo soul-searching magic to almost make me a believer. Had him baking bread and everything.”  
  
“Bread?” Bobby repeated, bemused.  
  
“Yep. The real deal.”  
  
“So, what are you up to now? Back to sightseeing?”  
  
“Nah, we’ve moved on, mostly. Jim said that Sam’s better off feeling  _useful_ , that if we wanted to get his confidence going, we ought to be doing something important. So we’ve been working some cases together.”  
  
“Cases? Dean, tell me you’re talking cases of beer.”  
  
“Nope, our kinds of cases, Bobby. Like ghosts and poltergeists and demonic chicke—”  
  
 _“Are you out of your mind, idjit?”_  
  
Dean jumped, yanking the phone away from his ear barely in time to save his eardrum and accidentally flinging the handcuff key halfway across the room, likely under the doily-covered dresser that neither he nor Sam had bothered to use. Dean glared after it, and pressed the phone back to his ear when a cautious test showed that Bobby had stopped shouting. “What the hell, Bobby? It’s not like I’ve been taking him to strip clubs.” And much as Dean liked strip clubs, he knew setting foot in one with Sam would likely set a new world record for fastest panic attack. Bad idea, not going to happen.  
  
“Don’t you give me that ‘what the hell Bobby.’ You wouldn’t have survived two decades with your daddy if you were that dumb. Though now I’m wondering if maybe you scraped by on good looks and that cheeky grin, because what the  _hell_ are you thinking, taking a—a kid raised in Freak Camp, not even out six months yet, raised with _monsters_ and treated just like one, out to hunt  _other_ monsters? Not even mentioning how planning a perfect hunt is about as likely as me winning the lottery when I don’t buy any damn tickets, and the kid’s about an inch away from shattering every time he hears a loud noise. What, you just gonna charge into a new situation and cross your fingers that there ain’t any triggers that’ll leave that kid shivering on the floor and you  _vulnerable_ at the wrong damn moment—”  
  
“Hold your fucking horses, Bobby.” Dean fished a spare paper clip out of his pocket and popped open his handcuffs with a quick twist. “I’m  _not_ an idiot, okay? I know there’s risks and all, trust me. We’re not hitting a fucking werewolf pack on the full moon, here, we’re working our way through the hard stuff, which right now is talking to witnesses. If you’re flipping your shit over a couple of spirits, believe me that Sam does just fine going up against the big stuff. Hell, the coolest I’ve ever seen him was when there was an undead bastard with too many teeth going for his throat. And we’ve  _talked_ about the whole monster thing, and Sam gets it, all right? He doesn’t want to hurt people, or see them get hurt, and he wants to work to make sure that doesn’t happen.”  
  
Dean drew a breath, but there was just silence on the other end, maybe the slight rasp of breathing, the bark of a dog in the background. “It would be different if we were tossing freaks back to the ASC—hell, that would fuck with _my_ head—but that’s not what we’re doing. Salt-and-burns, Bobby. And honestly, we aren’t even doing much of that, mainly a ton of research and the least-threatening gigs I can find. Like that haunting in Greenville, isn’t one, we’re pretty sure of that by now. Seriously, Bobby, it’s—he’s sleeping better, okay? Gets through the night easier. And he can look people in the eye now, and it’s just—it’s good for him. For both of us.”  
  
The silence stretched. Dean gritted his teeth and moved to the edge of the bed, rocking in place, wondering if he should grab the handcuff key from under the dresser. Wondering if Bobby would  _say_ something. Then at last, Bobby exhaled. “Balls. I dunno, kid, I’d like to take your word for it, but hunting screws up the best of us, and that kid wasn’t so steady to begin with.”  
  
Dean let out a short laugh. “Yeah, but the thing is, we’re kinda working backwards on the whole thing. Monsters don’t scare Sam—people do. So, we’re gonna start making him the world’s most badass cracked-up hunter, and gradually try and make a civilian out of him. And compared to what he’s used to...well, hunting ain’t so bad.”  
  
“Maybe not. But you gotta admit...the ASC did a number on his noodle. The kid might mean well, but if you hunt with him, he’s gonna do something that surprises you—and, Dean, when it’s hunting, it’s never a  _good_ surprise. Or at a good time. Or something you can  _deal_ with. You’re playing with a mess of crossed wires in that kid’s brain and sooner or later something’s going to spark.”  
  
“He’s not a time bomb, Bobby,” Dean said, annoyed. “He’s a kid, and he’s my—” He almost lost his tongue biting off the words.  
  
“Your  _what?_ ” There went all the muttered, half-reassured calm that had crept into Bobby’s voice. That was the voice he used to yell at John when the Winchesters had shown up drunk, and the voice he’d used once on a witch that had revealed a particularly badly-thought-out plan to destroy the world. Dean winced.  
  
“Just—my kid.” Dean rubbed his hand over his eyes, hoping that come out better than he thought. “My responsibility, okay. The kid I sprung from Freak Camp. We work through shit, and we eat, and we watch TV, and get through panic attacks, and I’m not going to turn to him now and say, ‘We’re not going this hunting shtick,  _you_ can’t do this hunting shtick because I don’t trust you’ because it’s  _not fucking true_. Because ganking monsters is a part of my life, and a part that makes him feel good, like he isn’t—because he’s  _not_ what they always told him he was. And yeah, it’s going to suck sometimes, and I’m kind of nervous as hell about the first time we go against something seriously nasty, but we’re taking it a day at a time, like we take everything, and that’s gonna have to be enough for you, Bobby.”  
  
Bobby exhaled again, heavily. Dean heard the man’s sleeve scrape against the phone and wondered if he was rubbing his forehead, or just moving the handset. “Christ. Just, be careful, idjit. You ain’t eight, thinking you could fly if the car was moving fast enough and had a blanket stapled to your shirtsleeves.”  
  
“That was  _once_ , Bobby. I’m a bit older now. Look, I’ll call, you, all right? I’ll check in, let you know we’re not dead, let you know if we are. The usual. But we’re not gonna get dead. I got this, Sam and I.” _Or at least I hope we do._  
  
“You better. Take care of yourself, idjit. And...you can say hi to the kid for me, if you think it would be okay.”  
  
“I’ll do that, Bobby. Check ya later.”  
  
Dean snapped the phone shut and kind of sagged against the dresser. He wasn’t sure if he’d been yelling at Bobby, or just trying to make a point, if he’d been too defensive ( _“Watch the ones that insist there’s nothing going on, Dean,” John had said. “They’re the ones trying to convince themselves”_ ), or just on the level he needed to be because for the first time in a long time this thing between him and Sam felt like it was going good, like the bad old days were really in their past, and he desperately didn’t want to fuck that up.  
  
And yet, he wasn’t sure if he knew how to avoid doing exactly that.  
  
Talking a deep breath, Dean retrieved the handcuff key out from under the dresser, stashed it and the handcuffs in his duffel, and let himself out of the room to find Sam.  
  
He was right where Dean had expected, curled in the one cozy chair in the living room, out of sight of the front door. When he looked up and saw Dean, he smiled like a flare lighting up on a dark night.  
  
“Hey, Sam, you wanna go for a walk?”  
  
“Sure, Dean.” Sam put the book he’d been reading back on the shelf (look at that, just grabbing a book like it belonged to him, Dean didn’t know how he could hold this together when he was so proud of every damn thing Sam did).  
  
When they left the bed and breakfast, Sam’s hand brushed Dean’s, and Dean thought about the last time they’d gone for a walk, some truck stop in the middle of corn fields, no one around, when Sam had reached in to kiss him under the sun, hand on Dean’s arm and his eyes closed.  
  
If anyone, even Bobby, thought he would gamble this away on hunting, then they didn’t know Dean Winchester as well as they thought they did.


	20. Chapter 20

Sam chose East Liverpool, Ohio as their endpoint for the day. Dean often handed him the map and told him to pick a place to stop for the night. Sam had gotten pretty good at converting inches on the map—measured by finger-joints and folded roadside brochures—into hours on the road, figuring out feasible distances they could travel and still arrive before midnight when the hotels closed, without Dean speeding too much down the interstate. The giddy thrill never faded over the knowledge that Dean would let him choose so much, where to point the Impala and where they would sleep that night.  
  
These days, their direction and destination depended more on what rumor of a hunt they were following than on Dean’s whims, or Sam’s random pick. They’d only had one successful hunt since the first ghost hunt: a haunted pocket-watch that froze people, sometimes harmlessly, sometimes at fatal moments. They’d investigated a couple others, from potentially-possessed chickens to a cursed typewriter, but those cases hadn’t gone anywhere. It had been both agonizing and reassuring to work on those cases, interviewing civilians (or at least, as Dean said, “offering moral support”) with Dean, following leads and weighing evidence. Those had been some of Sam’s best days since he’d gotten out of Freak Camp. But, much as he loved everything about working with Dean, knowing that Dean cared enough to take things slow, he wanted the satisfaction of seeing a real hunt out to its conclusion, knowing they’d made an actual difference and that reals—those happy smiling carefree people he was getting more used to every day—were safer now because of what they’d done.  
  
He’d thought they were on the right track with a couple other leads that looked like they could be a demon and a djinn, but Dean had muttered and made a call to Bobby, then came back saying it wasn’t their gig. Sam didn’t question that; Dean knew these things better than he did, and Sam knew that Hunter Singer had decades’ more experience, but he hoped they’d find one that  _was_ their gig soon.  
  
In the meantime, Dean told him to pick their endpoints and Sam stretched out the huge, battered maps, running his fingers down the thick highway lines even after he had found a good place, the right place, just because he liked the look and feel of the paper under his hands, the knowledge that wherever he named, Dean would stop there because he trusted Sam. He liked East Liverpool. The town stood at a crossroads of the Ohio River with three highways and two states, with a third state border less than ten minutes away. But he hadn’t chosen the town for any of those reasons.  
  
“It r-reminded me of this book I’ve been reading,” Sam told Dean over dinner, half a slice of meatloaf with gravy sprawled over his plate, forgotten in the explanation. “It’s really good, the l-librarian at Joliet told me it was a classic, and it has a Liverpool too, though not in Ohio, or even the United St-states. It’s about England in the 1800s, and there’s a bunch of stories about two men who live and travel together and s-solve crimes, and stop bad things from happening, and save people. And they take care of each other.” Feeling himself flush, Sam dropped his gaze to his baked potato, prodding it with his fork. “Holmes is kinda h-harsh sometimes, though. To Watson and everyone else.”  
  
“Huh.” Dean leaned back, stretching his arm out along the back of the booth, fingers splayed. Fleetingly, Sam wished he were sitting on that side, Dean’s arm that close, his hand brushing Sam’s shoulder. “Isn’t Holmes some kind of genius badass detective?”  
  
“Oh yeah. He knows everything by little clues no one else sees, so he figures out all the answers in a-advance. He doesn’t tell anyone right away, though, just keeps people in suspense so he can have a big dramatic reveal at the end. He doesn’t even tell Watson.”  
  
“Well, that makes him a pompous jackass. Guess I’m more of a fan of cute genius badasses who aren’t totally stuck on themselves.” Dean’s boot nudged alongside Sam’s sneaker, while a smirk tugged his mouth. “Good thing I know one, huh?”  
  
Sam’s face still felt warm. He turned his foot, catching it behind Dean’s ankle, and leaned over the table. “So, sh-should we get the pie to go? Maybe eat it later back at the motel?”  
  
Dean grinned, and waved the waitress down. Sam felt a rush of pleasure, knowing that Dean had meant him, knowing that Dean thought pie was a good idea. He wondered, though, if Dean liked that Sam had made the suggestion almost as much as the idea itself. Dean liked it when he said things, offered opinions, tried to piece together the facts of a case like Sherlock Holmes did. Dean  _liked_  that.  
  
So when they reached their hotel room, Dean leading him up the twisting stairs to the second floor and reaching across Sam to get the rectangular keycard into the door slot, Sam made another choice, the angle too perfect not to turn just slightly sideways and notch their hips together.  
  
Dean turned his head, startled or expectant or just knowing where Sam was and what he meant with an ease that took Sam’s breath away, and their mouths met just as naturally. Dean licked at Sam’s already-parted lips, his callused fingers slipping behind Sam’s head and easing him back until Sam could feel the door against his spine.  
  
Sam made a small noise in his throat, into Dean’s mouth, against his tongue. Daring even more, he slipped his hands under Dean’s heavy plaid overshirt, letting his fingers rest against the taut muscles over his ribs, the thin cotton of his T-shirt the only barrier before skin. He would never, ever, take this for granted, the miracle of being allowed to touch Dean like this, close and hot and when he wanted, as much as he wanted, without fear, without repercussions, with Dean groaning back into his mouth, as though the sounds Sam made echoed and expanded between them with every touch.  
  
They finally fumbled the door open, after necking under the lamplight, the adrenaline in Sam’s blood almost blocking the thought that they could be seen, could be judged. They shared the pie as they sprawled out over the bed, the TV low on the Discovery Channel, Sam’s shoulders tucked under Dean’s arm, his head close enough to Dean’s neck to smell the light brush of his aftershave.  
  
Sam’s last thought before he drifted into sleep to the soft flicker of the TV, Dean kissing his forehead goodnight, was that this peace, this contentment—feeling warm and safe, pie in his stomach and the sweetness of Dean’s kiss lingering in his mouth—was the reward of being brave.  
  
~*~  
  
The next morning, rain rolled across East Liverpool, and Dean took the poor visibility as an excuse to delay heading out. They smuggled the hotel’s continental breakfast—stale-but-delicious donuts, a spotted apple, and strong coffee—back to the room, and Sam dug into the local and regional newspapers, looking for anything that might be a new hunt. Dean opened his laptop, tapped out a couple things—not even a sentence-worth of letters, by Sam’s estimation—and then stared outside at the sheets of gray rain pounding the vehicles in the parking lot. Sam made careful notes on the margins of his newspaper articles (probably nothing supernatural, but curious real customs he wanted to ask Dean about, styles of commentary and shades of implications that he didn’t really understand and Dean would), and glanced now and then toward Dean, who never looked away from the window, the computer ignored in favor of the damp and grey.  
  
Sam’s fingers itched for the laptop. He could probably find a hunt in fifteen, thirty minutes with an internet connection and a few of the specialized search engines he had learned about in FREACS. He might even be able to figure out most of those cultural references without wasting Dean’s time or watching him struggle to explain such basic real things to a dumb freak. Not that those were the words Dean would use, because he was too nice.  
  
He was nice, and nothing made him look happier lately than when Sam dared to act like a real, seizing a real’s privileges. Last week, Sam had asked the waitress at the diner for a clean fork, since the one he had inside his napkin roll had some weird sticky substance on the tines. Before, Sam wouldn’t have thought twice about it—maybe he’d have stuck it in his own mouth to clean it off. He hadn’t even been conscious of why he decided to speak up.  
  
After Dean’s face had lit up like Sam had done something truly incredible, the likes of which he couldn’t even imagine (how he wished he could, how he wished he knew how to make Dean look like that every day)—it had taken Sam a few minutes to remember his reasoning before he spoke to the waitress (still stuttering and stumbling badly over the request, barely able to make eye contact for a full second). His thought had been that ordinary reals would not accept a dirty fork, and using it would, if not be a big enough giveaway that would have someone on the phone to the ASC, at least draw negative attention and disgust. Sam wasn’t certain that Dean knew that’s what he had been thinking, but he still thrilled at how he was learning to instinctively make the right choices, the choices that made Dean happy, even if those same choices would have felt so  _wrong_ as to make him shudder and lock up completely just a short time ago.  
  
If Freak Camp ( _the Director_ ) had taught Sam anything, it was how to adjust rapidly to new expectations.  
  
With that thought in mind, Sam breathed in and held out his hand toward Dean’s laptop. “C-can I use that, if you’re not?”  
  
Dean glanced back at him—surprised, but not ( _not, not, not_ ) displeased. “Blast away, Sam.” He made an expansive, sweeping gesture toward the computer, and Sam cautiously pulled it toward him. His fingers moved slow at first, careful with  _Dean’s_ computer in a way he might not have been with any other real’s, but picked up speed as Dean didn’t even glance back to watch him.  
  
The Internet didn’t have much information about a local high school fundraising for their art and music department. But another story on the news homepage caught his eye, stopped his hands and breath for a moment. He pulled himself out of the freeze, hard, with a deep shaky breath. It wasn’t as though such things were  _new_ to him. No, this was entirely familiar, though not something he’d seen since he was in the Administration library. It was different now, with Dean. Now he could  _do_ something about it. And it would give them the opportunity for an entirely different sort of hunt.  
  
Sam read the article carefully, making mental notes of the key details, and then cleared his throat, pushing the computer back around to Dean. “I found something.”  
  
Dean started from where he’d been staring out the window, then, still looking a little distracted, took the computer. Sam wondered about his reverie, if he had been thinking of past hunts or mornings like this with his father, if he missed them, if getting Sam had been worth giving them up. Sam had so many questions he was afraid to ask, not sure he wanted the answers.  
  
Dean tapped the arrow key a few times to read the article through, forehead creasing. When he reached the end, he pushed the computer away from them and shifted uncomfortably, like when he was talking about something he thought would bother Sam.  
  
“What’s your question, Sam?” Dean asked. His voice was quiet, patient, not angry at all at  _Sam_ , despite the darker tones underneath, hints of anger and sorrow, the same that emerged whenever Freak Camp came up.  
  
Sam hesitated, unsure why Dean thought there was a question. “It’s a hunt.”  
  
Dean’s eyebrows rose, his lips parting as though he were going to speak, but he didn’t. He looked back at the screen, tapping on the arrows to read it through again, slower this time. When he was done, he rubbed his mouth, still looking at the screen, and Sam realized he was clenching his own fists hard under the table, holding his breath. He forced himself to open them and exhale.  
  
“Sam, I don’t think it’s our kind of gig.”  
  
Sam blinked, bewildered. Dean had said that before, mostly about monsters that would have been rated for Intensive Containment, but Sam didn’t understand why he was ruling out this one, too. Did Dean still think Sam wasn’t ready for serious hunts? Sam would abide by what Dean thought best, of course, but he had to ignore a spark of something as selfish and stupid as  _hurt_ that Dean still didn’t trust him. They’d trained for  _weeks_. And this was  _important_. Sam would stay out of it if Dean wanted him to, but Dean, or  _someone_ , should stop this ugly, bloodthirsty freak from hurting any more reals.  
  
“Okay,” Sam said, slowly, “but do you want—you could handle it, if you want, and I’ll st-stay in the libraries, or else maybe you could call Hunter Singer—”  
  
“No, Sam, I mean...it says here it’s the first horror show the neighborhood’s seen, the kid had documented behavioral issues, and they’ve already got a full unit on it, detectives and the real FBI and all those blue-jacketed patsies that wouldn’t know a poltergeist if it plasma-barfed all over their shoes, but...they can handle this, and they’ve got the resources. Wouldn’t be much else Bobby or I could do by sticking our noses in.”  
  
Baffled, Sam looked back at the computer screen. “But the police—you said, they w-won’t know how to identify what type of freak it is, not unless they have a hunter on hand—”  
  
“Sam.” Dean held his hand out, until Sam placed his hand in Dean’s and raised his gaze. “It’s not our gig. There’s nothing here that points to anything supernatural.”  
  
Sam stared, mouth dry. Something was wrong; some connection he’d missed, some gear broken or snapped in his brain after years of rigorous training and research. He knew the signs a monster left in its wake: dead reals, misery, horror, pain. He  _did_. His life and skin had depended on it. “But,” he said, and was distantly alarmed to hear the slight tremble in his voice, “the-the w-woman and children, they w-weren’t—they were r-reals, right? J-just people?”  
  
Dean’s hand tightened on his. He never looked away, though it looked like it hurt him to maintain his gaze. “Yeah, Sammy,” he said softly. “They were just people. They were all just people. Normal people can be—we can be fucking monsters as easily as any freak. Like those sons-of-bitches who put their hands on you in camp. They’re  _supposed_ to be people, even though they don’t got the first goddamn idea how to be one.”  
  
“But—” Sam opened his other hand, reaching for the explanation that had to be right there, obvious if he only had the eyes to see it. “But we’re monsters. It’s not like they did anything to real people.”  
  
Dean jerked back in his chair, almost letting go of Sam’s hand, but he moved back at the last moment. He took a deep, deliberate breath, then spoke clearly, though with almost visible strain. “Okay, Sammy, listen to me. This is important.” Sam gave Dean a tight nod, back a straight line while his heart pumped so hard he could imagine it hitting his ribs. “No one in that camp had any right to treat you that way.  _No_ one. You didn’t do anything to deserve it, and everything they did, everything you saw or experienced, that’s just as fucked up as what happened to this family. Every bit as fucked up.”  
  
Sam swallowed. Dean was so serious, the most Sam had ever seen him. It was important that Sam believe him, because  _Dean_ believed it, but—Sam couldn’t account for it, any way he tried to make the facts add up to a single coherent whole. Monsters and reals were antithetical beings, unable by the very order of the universe to live in harmony, one always destined for destruction at the other’s hands. Reals were the source and pinnacle of decency, beauty, and good in the world, while monsters fed off of them like a cancer and a curse. Monsters, who did not have the right to exist,  _must_ be restrained, beaten down, destroyed by whatever force or means that reals could find, and they’d be lucky if those measures were enough. Those were the principles of Sam’s life, his existence, of Freak Camp, the truths he had woken to, the pain he had slept with, for as long as he could remember.  
  
Until Dean had pulled him out of there, given him a new life ordered by new rules about what Sam did and didn’t deserve. Because Dean didn’t count him among the monsters. He’d said it over and over, sometimes in subtly different ways, sometimes in the same words. He said that Sam wasn’t a freak, that Sam was a  _real_ , as though the ASC could have made some mistake, as though Sam’s life could have been an error that could be wiped away by the will of one Winchester. Sam couldn’t believe him, couldn’t imagine that being true. And Dean didn’t know all the filthy freak things Sam had done, didn’t know all the ways he was just another monster (more obedient, more  _useful_ , but a freak down to his bones). He might reconsider, if he knew.  
  
But in the meantime, it didn’t change Dean’s theory, didn’t change how Dean was waiting, watching him with something that looked like trepidation. So Sam nodded, a little jerkily. Dean did not look exactly reassured, so Sam pressed on: “How—how do you know it wasn’t a freak? Could have been a shifter posing as their son, maybe.”  
  
Dean shrugged one shoulder, mouth twisted. “It’s a lot of little details, I couldn’t even point them all out to you. One-time event, weapon used, damage done, stuff I couldn’t even name but I  _know_ , you know. And...this kind of thing happens, Sam. Even when it’s not monsters, people just...I wish it never happened, but it does. The cops’ll check the video for lens flare, that’s standard practice, and run a handful of other tests, but unless something pings their radar...it’s just not something we should stick our noses into.”  
  
“What if he’s an unidentified,” Sam asked, almost in a whisper, “like me?”  
  
Dean’s fingers dug into Sam’s palm, hard pressure points, grounding him. “He is  _nothing_  like you, Sam.” His vehemence made Sam flinch. “Look, you got it right, in a way. There’s no question that this piece of shit is a monster. And we find monsters by what they do, by fucked-up shit like this. But we can’t just hunt everything that’s a monster, there’s not enough hunters, even if it were legal. So, if they’re sprouting extra teeth or shedding skin, we go after them, because we’ve got the skills that put those mothers down. And if they’re not, the cops and real FBI dudes go after them. But you—you don’t qualify either way, because you’re not a monster, got it?”  
  
Sam nodded. That made sense, as far as he knew. Because he couldn’t remember what he had done to make the ASC put him in Freak Camp. He pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his free arm around them and tucking his head down. Dean had made perfectly sound sense, and there was no reason Sam should want to tuck himself beneath the creaking hotel bed and cry.  
  
He heard Dean sigh, then the click of the laptop being shut. “Let’s leave it alone for a while, okay, kiddo?” Dean got up from the table, without letting go of Sam’s hand, and rested his other palm on the back of Sam’s neck. “Maybe we can find one of those shows about deep-sea fish or something. C’mon.”  
  
Unfolding from his chair, Sam let Dean lead him back to the bed (on  _top_ , not in the dark where he belonged, where monsters belonged). Dean turned on the TV, muted and channel-surfed absently, one hand stroking over Sam’s shoulder, steady as the beat of his heart. Sam tucked his face to Dean’s chest, letting the flashing colors wash over him. The rain had lulled into a quieter drum, but still colored the world an even gray, keeping them safe indoors. At least, that’s what Sam let himself believe.  
  
~*~  
  
Later that day, when Sam felt less like he was going to shake apart, he got back on Dean’s laptop, determined that this time he would find the right thing, something they could do. If, as Dean said, humans could be vicious to each other, then they would at least try to stop the monsters.  
  
He found it hours later, when the sun began to descend and the rain was at last clearing. A series of somewhat mysterious, water-related deaths near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania might not have been a guaranteed monster incident, but the way incidents increased during the dark of the moon and dropped off almost completely during the full let him be about as certain as he could be without a hunter corroborating his conclusions.  
  
Sam ran a quick clean-up program through Dean’s computer and deleted the web browser’s cookies and cache (carefully not looking, not looking at the sites Dean frequented that accumulated the most junk), before turning the computer silently toward Dean with the various web pages (he’d drawn from several sources this time, not just the one) open.  
  
Dean studied what he’d found for a few minutes, then nodded agreement.  
  
It was already fairly late, but they packed up and struck out on I-76. With not just a destination, but a purpose in mind, Dean pushed the Impala to her best speeds, until they reached an exit for the outskirts of Harrisburg that promised a diner and motel.  
  
The waitress serving them their late-night dinner was an affable older woman, and Sam practiced making eye contact as he smiled (it still didn’t feel any easier, not after this many months), but his efforts were not rewarded. She smiled back, but then asked as she refilled their water glasses, “Up kinda late for a school night, aren’t you, hon?”  
  
Sam’s breath stopped. This wasn’t the first time someone had said something about that, about what he  _should_ be doing if he were a  _real_ , but he completely froze up yet again. He couldn’t even remember what Dean had said before in these situations.  
  
But Dean was still there across from him, knocking their feet together before leaning in to catch sight of the waitress’ name tag. “Hey, Darla, can I get a refill?”  
  
She looked down her nose at him, then at his half-empty coffee cup, her heavy blue beaded earrings swaying gently. “No problem, hon. You want decaf?”  
  
“Nah, regular’s fine.”  
  
“It’s your braincells.” Even when she walked away, even when Dean pressed his foot along Sam’s shin, he couldn’t relax. When she came back, carrying the coffee thermos half-braced against her hip, he couldn’t stop his hands from clenching under the table, and couldn’t force himself to raise his eyes.  
  
Darla poured for Dean and then stood there. Sam could feel her gaze, an almost tangible heat across the table. Or maybe that was the panic running just under his skin, the fear that he’d thought he could handle but he _couldn’t_. Once again someone had proven that no matter how safe he thought he was, there was always another reason he couldn’t pass as a real. No matter how hard he strove to strip away the appearance and mannerisms of a monster, there was another inevitable reminder that he was and always would be a fool and a freak.  
  
“Really, hon, your friend over here oughta be sleeping if he’s got school tomorrow. Sleep-deprivation can be as bad as alcohol. Or drinking too much coffee.” Sam kept his head down and watched through his bangs.  
  
Dean smiled, but it was more a baring-of-teeth than his usual open grin. “Sam’s older than he looks, and I like my coffee as black as my soul, thanks.”  
  
“Decaf comes in black,” she pointed out.  
  
“I like to live dangerously. And it’s not like there’s nothing else out there to watch out for. Speaking of which, you hear about the drowning near South Enola Road?”  
  
Darla nodded slowly. “Yes, I did. Good man. Not the first mighty strange happening around here, either. My cousin’s girl had a flat tire by the Harvey Taylor Bridge, and out of nowhere she got jumped by some crazy bastard wearing a rug.”  
  
“She okay?”  
  
“Good thing she’s a fire-eater. She took a swing at that hobo with her tire iron, and he took off like a bat out of hell. Still hasn’t been caught. It’s enough to make an honest woman bring a shotgun to bed.”  
  
Dean took a sip of his coffee. “You know anyone else had a scare like that? Maybe somebody walking along the river that same night or thereabouts?”  
  
She glared. “You one of those boys that looks up freaky crap just for giggles?”  
  
“No, ma’am. Just concerned about my kid here.” Dean gestured vaguely toward Sam, and Sam had to remind himself (before he bit his fingernails into his arms, which he knew would make Dean upset, and besides it was a  _Rule_ ) that Dean didn’t necessarily mean that Sam wasn’t capable of protecting himself. He didn’t think that Sam would go wild and start attacking people. He was just talking to a civilian to get intel, making small talk. Except for the fact that Sam was  _there_ , would be there for this hunt, the conversation had nothing to do with him.  
  
“Well, there’s Joanne Boswell, whose brother-in-law ended up dead over by Fort Hunter, and Mark Burns. He swore up and down this time last month that he saw a wild dog or some such, but he’s been known to drink—and not coffee—so we ain’t paid him much mind, at least not until my cousin’s girl Lorie got jumped. Weird things have been happening around here and all the way up by Marysville. There’s been rumors that the sheriff might call up them damn monster hunters if it keeps up this way, even though no one wants one of them government types tramping around, least of all old Bosco.”  
  
Dean’s voice was completely sincere. “I don’t think that’s going to be necessary, ma’am. Probably just some dog, shouldn’t be a problem to take care of without calling in the ASC.”  
  
The waitress nodded. “Hon, I hope so, but I’m not much on believing that anymore.”  
  
Sam hoped so, too. Sam hoped so very much.  
  
~*~  
  
Later that night, Sam was stretched on his stomach over the worn hotel bed, spinning his cell phone on the bedspread, when Dean came out of the shower. A book lay closed on one corner of the bed, a slip of paper marking his place in the middle.  
  
Dropping the towel he had been using to rub his hair dry, Dean sat down next to Sam. "Hey, Sammy. What's bugging you?"  
  
He expected something about the latest murders (no way anyone could convince him that nine lunar-cycle drownings were anything but supernatural) or maybe another talk about what made a monster, but instead Sam rolled on his side to look up at him, forehead knit above his hazel eyes, and asked, "If...if I were a real...what kind of school would I be in?"  
  
Dean took a moment to absorb that question, working out in his head what Sam was getting at. This...this was important. He answered slow and careful, as he did all of Sam's important questions. "You'd, uh...be in high school. A sophomore, or maybe a junior, I guess. Maybe a couple years left to go."  
  
Sam pondered that, tapping his phone against the bed. The next time he spoke, his voice was even softer, more hesitant, making Dean’s gut clench in memory of that first cata-fucking-strophic week in Boulder. "Could you...tell me more, about high school? Just, what I'm supposed to know, what I would be doing. Just in case someone asks again?"  
  
Dean reached out to touch Sam's hair, brushing it slowly, carefully back from his temple—an automatic gesture to buy himself time, a moment when Sam wouldn’t worry or try to backtrack, apologizing for asking the wrong question, or telling Dean to never mind, it wasn’t important. But if Sam wanted to learn about those things, it was important, and he had every right to know. Sam shouldn't have to ask at all. Dean just didn't know where to start, not when Sam deserved to know everything and Dean was pretty much the worst person to cover any of that, at least in the way that it  _should_ be explained.  
  
But there wasn't anyone else. Dean wouldn’t waste time wishing on a star for a fucking Jiminy Cricket.  
  
He began, awkward and fumbling—bad as his first time getting his hands under a girl's shirt—to tell Sam about high school. He’d been in enough schools in his time to have a fairly sweeping idea of how it worked all across the country, but that generalized knowledge didn’t exactly help him compress four years of girls (and guys), fights, and half-assed classes, and move on into a play-by-play description of periods and semesters, first days and finals, gym classes and lunch hour posturing. How could he describe teachers and cliques that were the same no matter where you went, no matter what school you ended up in anywhere in the country? He tried to make it cut and dried, leave out the shit of being wrapped up in the whole racket. But, like always, it was no good trying to keep anything from Sam and his quiet, watchful eyes.  
  
"What do you mean, ‘or something like that’?"  
  
Dean shrugged, self-conscious and uncomfortable. "Just, I mean, it's been a while since I was there, Sammy."  
  
Sam's brow wrinkled. "But it was just a couple years ago, right? You said most kids finish when they're about eighteen?"  
  
"Yeah, I guess. Seems longer, is all. I've had bigger things to worry about, you know."  
  
To Dean's relief, Sam let the point go. He felt like a coward not owning up to his sawed-off education—and it was ridiculous, hiding this from Sam—but he just didn't want to admit it out-and-out to the kid, not when his eyes were so big, every iota of attention trained on Dean’s lame descriptions.  
  
"Science, math, history, English, art, PE." Sam ticked each one off on his fingers almost reverentially, like a catechism to keep close to his heart. That was the same way he treated so many tiny things, like the ingredients for a cheeseburger or the value of each coin. It never failed to twist Dean's heart, make him want to promise Sam that it didn't matter that fucking much, that there were better things to care about, family and duty and, fuck, even trees and books and how many days along twisting country paths to get back to the ocean. "And they change every year?"  
  
"Yeah, you get algebra, then algebra II, and...trig? And biology and chemistry and physics—and there are electives, like Spanish or woodworking or computer, if you're in a fancier school." Dean kind of wanted to crawl into a hole and hide when Sam just kept listening with rapt attention, eyes shining as though he was talking about a candy store instead of a damn high school. "Look, if you really want to know more, I can get you—I don’t know, some textbooks? Might have some shoved under the seats, still. That's where I found that one back in Boulder. They're not too hard to dig up, if you want to look through some yourself. Way better than me trying to remember that shit."  
  
"Oh," Sam breathed, wonder filling the word like the first time Dean had taken him to a library, and that settled it.  
  
The next day they roamed Harrisburg’s streets for bookstores. A place called the Midtown Scholar Bookstore sounded promising, but Dean had no luck finding standard textbooks or anything that really laid out the class schedules and instructions the way Sam was looking for. Local bookstores weren’t exactly a familiar stomping ground for him, but Dean guessed that the run-of-the-mill textbooks, like they passed out in schools, weren’t really available at your local mom-and-pop bookstore. He was probably going to have to figure out how to order something from a teacher’s warehouse and, barring that, do some breaking and entering. After all, how much security would they really put on a bunch of textbooks that most kids didn’t want to get anyway?  
  
He had picked up an anthology that stirred up memories of being bored out of his skull in English class, along with an intro-to-algebra guide, and eventually found Sammy kneeling before a shelf of local history textbooks. “Whatcha find, kiddo?”  
  
Sam looked up with a half-apologetic smile. “I was...checking to see if there were more records of attacks on the river, particularly around the dark of the moon. Just to see if there’s anything else like that w-waitress described last night.”  
  
Dean leaned against the shelf. “That’s not why we came in here, you know.”  
  
Sam shrugged one shoulder. “It seemed like—since there are books, we might as well...”  
  
“Nah, I hear ya. Good thinking, Sammy. We can head to the library next.” Dean hesitated, then held out the books he’d picked out. “Think you’d want these?”  
  
Standing up, Sam hesitantly skimmed his fingers over the covers, then looked questioningly at Dean. “If they’re—these are what students use? In school?” His voice dropped to a soft whisper, barely audible even where Dean stood and certainly impossible for anyone else to catch.  
  
Dean frowned at the books. “Well, they’re...kinda. I mean, this one might be. I dunno.” He set the books on a nearby pile with a thump and sighed. “I don’t remember school well enough to say. But you don’t have to settle for them, I’ll find you the real deal.”  
  
Sam’s mouth quirked into a smile. “Like strawberries?”  
  
“Yeah, just like them. We’ll grab a bag of them out of a truck on the side of the highway, or wherever the hell schools get ‘em.”  
  
They ended up buying the anthology, a book on the history of Pennsylvania, and a notebook. A guy, reading with his bandaged foot propped on the counter, looked up when they brought up their purchases, then grabbed a crutch to limp to the cash register.  
  
Dean nodded his head toward the guy’s leg and raised an eyebrow. “Kinda early still for Halloween, don’tcha think?”  
  
The man glared. “I’m not wrapped up like a mummy for kicks. I got jumped. There’s a damn wild dog or something by the river, attacking whatever the hell it wants. If I hadn’t have been carrying a knife, the thing would’ve taken out my throat.”  
  
Dean felt his heart rate jump. That lined up with what Darla had told them the night before. A quick sideways glance at Sam showed he was feeling the same excitement. “Whereabouts were you? ‘Cause I heard a guy named Burns had a scare like that too. Pretty crazy, these things happening in the middle of the city.”  
  
The man looked no happier. “You’ve been talking to  _Burns?_  No wonder your story’s all messed up. I was up by the Suskie, same as he was—and if he says differently, you can be sure it’s after he’s had a few and can’t even remember his address—and though I don’t hold with the stories of monsters the old folks used to tell when I was a kid, it was damn strange to see something that big coming at me that time of night. Most wild dogs won’t go after humans, even when it’s dark like that. I wouldn’t have been out there at all, but me and a buddy wanted to check out the hunting. Not the best night for it, but my buddy, he ain’t that bright, so one second we’re checking out where there might be ducks, in the pitch black, and the next this dog is coming at me. It ran away real fast when I got out my knife, but you can bet it scared the crap out of me. I’m lucky to get nothing but a broken ankle out of it.”  
  
“Your friend get home all right?” Dean asked.  
  
The man rubbed a hand across his mouth, scowled at them and then at the books. “He’s fine. The cops are still looking for him, but he’ll  _be_  fine. And your total will be eighteen seventy-five.”  
  
Dean handed over a twenty. “Keep the change. I hope that leg gets better.”  
  
“Yeah, you and me both.”  
  
Dean turned to go, bag in hand, but Sam’s hand on his wrist stopped him.  
  
Sam turned to the man and smiled, tentative yet so fucking brave, Dean could have grabbed and kissed him right there. “E-excuse me, sir, but w-what kind of knife did you have?”  
  
The man blinked at him, and then took down the crutches and hobbled back over to his chair. “It was this one.” He reached into the space behind the counter and took out a dagger.  
  
Even wrapped in a fine leather sheath, Dean could tell the thing was old just by the handle. When the man drew it, he couldn’t stop his eyebrows from shooting up to his hairline. The blade was a smooth line of polished iron, maybe crude steel, with symbols etched all the way down the edge and a wicked point. If Dean had seen that baby in a secondhand shop, he would have picked it up right away, because it was the kind of blade that might—judging by the worn edges of the symbols engraved around the edge—have history and the power to take down monsters that iron alone couldn’t.  
  
“This was my grampa’s knife,” the man told Sam, turning the blade this way and that to catch the light. “I carry it everywhere because he told me that it would bring me luck. Not that fucking lucky.”  
  
“You’re still here,” Sam pointed out shyly. “When did you say that d-dog ran off?”  
  
The man blinked, and then snorted, sheathing the blade in one smooth motion and tucking it back under the counter. “Now that you mention it, it was pretty much the second that I drew this. Lucky, I guess. Or maybe it just recognized a weapon.”  
  
“Maybe,” Dean agreed. “Anything else, Sam?”  
  
Sam shook his head. “No, Dean. Thank you, sir, for the books and everything.”  
  
Dean didn’t look back to see if the guy gave any kind of acknowledgement, just followed Sam out of the shop.  
  
Sam met his eyes outside, his own wide and filled with a determination that Dean couldn’t imagine denying. “I think we need to focus on the hunt,” he said. “This,” he gestured with the hand swinging his new books, “it’s important, but not as important as hunting. So, who do you think we should talk to next?”  
  
Dean shrugged. “Maybe this Burns guy? And then I think cheeseburgers for lunch.”  
  
And if Dean felt a twinge and a twitch about setting aside the books, these textbooks that Sam wanted, in favor of hunting and what had always been Dean’s life, what he understood best in the world, he eased that with the knowledge that they  _would_ come back to books and classes and school; but Sam was right that the hunt had to come first.  
  
If Sam felt any of that unease, it didn’t show in his smile. “Sounds good, Dean.”  
  
~*~  
  
That night—two nights before the new moon—Sam and Dean were about twenty miles outside Harrisburg, where the western shore of the Susquehanna River degenerated into a twisting mess of forest and swamp. Dean had given Sam a flashlight (along with a heavy iron knife, taking a crowbar and a camping lantern for himself) before they left the Impala (parked in a county park about half a mile back), but neither of them had suggested turning it on. Sam had been concerned about losing his night vision, and though it was dark and his shoes squelched with every step, there was enough starlight not to run into trees or end up drowned in the river.  
  
As he walked, making soft sounds no matter how he tried not to (there had not been much opportunity in Freak Camp to walk silently through grass, to navigate the soft land by a river without noise), he was aware of Dean beside him, almost silent, only the glint of his ring and the crowbar he carried giving him away. Sam focused on matching that noiselessness and not giving them away. Most of the attacks had occurred within two miles of this spot, and they didn’t want to warn their prey.  
  
He was so focused on maintaining silence that Dean’s hand landing on his shoulder made him suck in a startled breath. “Did you hear that?”  
  
This time, Sam heard the nearby splash. It could have been a fish, but something was off about it. Sam didn’t have much experience with wildlife, but nothing he had seen so far on the Discovery Channel would have explained the low hiss that accompanied each successive almost-footstep. He nodded, sharply, sure Dean would feel the movement even if he couldn’t see it.  
  
“You go left,” Dean whispered, “and I’ll go right and we’ll try to—”  
  
Something moved on the edge of Sam’s peripheral vision: a fast, pale blur.  
  
And just like that he was back in camp. But not like a panic attack, not in the way that made him fall apart in supermarkets and malls or when reals looked him in the eye and smiled slightly askance. This was the old easy thrum of adrenaline, a complete awareness of his environment that made the world a crystal-clear exercise in precision, with every nerve and sense on edge to anticipate—and incapacitate—any threat. Sam had survived eleven years in Freak Camp, and guards hadn’t been the only danger.  
  
Almost without conscious decision, he locked one hand around Dean’s arm, the other weighing his iron blade, knees slightly bent and ready. “Did you see that?”  
  
“Kinda,” Dean said. “You?”  
  
Sam shook his head, and then spun. Something charged them from behind, long claws and pale arms lunging for his stomach, a low chittering sound coming from the dark. Sam sidestepped the attack with reflexes the Director had sharpened to a razor edge, and drove the long hilt of the knife forward with muscles Dean had trained. When the claws struck his blade (a blow that Sam could feel in his bones, despite the last month of training), the chittering changed to a scream and the beast jerked away, leaving behind the smell of burning hair.  
  
The chittering resumed at a distance, sharper this time, ups and downs that almost mimicked language, and Sam wondered if Dean would know what they were saying, if he’d learned words more practical than archaic Latin and Old Germanic. Sam blocked another blow, acting on instinct more than sight, responding to each pale flash of movement, rocking from the hits he managed to block.  
  
“Sam, close your eyes!”  
  
From nearly anyone else, Sam wouldn’t have listened. It was a fight, he had a blade, the enemy was coming hard and fast, but when Dean pushed in next to him and gave the command, his shoulder a solid weight against his, Sam clenched his eyes tight right before the lantern lit up the night. Sam couldn’t remember the last time he’d fought by someone that he trusted without question, someone who wouldn’t leave him to his enemies’ claws should he become too damaged to continue. It felt good, filling Sam with that same fierce joy from when they fought the ghost, grinning as he opened eyes already adjusting to the glare.  
  
It could have been an innocent by the river that night. Someone without iron, unprepared and alone, but instead it was Sam and Dean, the Winchesters, and this particular freak would never hurt anyone again if Sam could do anything about it.  
  
The monster, a furred, yellow, vaguely humanoid creature, screamed and wheeled back, clawing at its own eyes from the sudden light. Dean swung the crowbar hard and hit the thing squarely in its chest. The beast screamed again, and swiped at Dean, cutting a jagged line through his jeans, before its small, beady eyes widened, it coughed wetly twice, and died, black steam rising from the dirty yellow fur on its arms from Sam’s earlier cuts, and the flesh dissolving into white ooze where the crowbar entered its body.  
  
Sam and Dean stood over the monster, panting. It was smallish, about three feet tall, wearing a strip of almost-green cloth across its loins and covered with fur everywhere else. The stubby hands, splayed out in death, were clawed and webbed, and its mouth (open and filled with jagged teeth beneath two slits where its nose should have been) was stained with blood. Not just fresh, but layers and layers of old blood, in shades from dry, dark black to bright red and all the browns in between, glistening wetly over its flat chin and down to mat the fur of its chest.  
  
“Nice work there, Sammy,” Dean said, limping closer to him. “Definitely some kind of fairy. I’m glad we brought iron.”  
  
Sam sheathed his knife and grabbed Dean, dropping to look at his leg. “Dean, you’re bleeding.”  
  
Dean grinned, hoisting Sam back to his feet by his shoulder. “No biggie, Sam, it’s just a scrape, we’ll patch her up in the Impala and I’ll be sprinting from the cops in no time.”  
  
Sam had to force himself to breathe normally. Dean wasn’t supposed to be hurt. If anyone was hurt, it wasn’t supposed to be Dean. But a scratch was normal; Dean had come to visit him with worse than that even when he was in camp. He’d be okay. They’d be okay.  
  
And then something slammed into him hard from behind, sharp points digging into his back where the layers of shirts gave some protection, and he and Dean were tumbling forward, that same chittering in his ears, louder and furious now. Dean landed hard, and Sam launched himself over him, trying not to barrel into Dean with his full weight, and in the process threw the monster off.  
  
Rolling to his feet, Sam wheeled. The lantern was still burning on the ground beside Dean, lighting the grassy banks with an uncertain half-light, but he could see the other monster well enough: the same species as the dead one, but this time, he could see those dark, beady eyes and the hate in them, and how the creature moved sinuously, flexing its claws and baring its bloodstained mouth. Knife in one hand, searching backward with the other, Sam moved until he could crouch over Dean and feel his pulse. When he found it, he almost shuddered from the relief. He had never seen Dean so still, so absent. There was frightening wetness matting Dean’s hair, but his breathing was steady, and the pulse under Sam’s fingers was strong.  
  
Sam straightened. What do he had to do now was get Dean back to the Impala, patch that head wound, clean the wound on his leg, and get him somewhere that didn’t smell like wet and rot, and he couldn’t fucking do any of that because the monster before him—a fuath, he recognized it now, type of fairy, territorial—was revealing its bloody fangs and hissing long and low, as though it recognized him, but as prey rather than a threat.  
  
Sam reached over and pulled the crowbar from the other monster’s corpse. Then, armed in each hand, he bared his teeth. “Come on, you bloodsucking, ugly piece of shit.”  
  
There was a hint of intelligence in those beady eyes, a flicker of understanding in the way the beast moved away from the iron and snarled at his words. But not enough for it to know what it faced.  
  
The fuath charged. Sam crouched down to meet it.  
  
~*~  
  
When Dean finally rose back to consciousness, blinking in confusion at the dim light filtering through their hotel’s drapes, the first thing he took in was Sam's pale, intent face above his. His image receded for a moment—Dean took a couple rapid, unsteady breaths, bracing against the wonkiness of the world—but then Sam came close again, and into focus. He peered closely at Dean's eyes, then glanced at the nearby clock and wrote something down on the yellow legal pad in his lap. Dean followed his motions, wondering if this was real or a hallucination courtesy of one too many sudden impacts to his walnut.  
  
He tried to speak. "Sammy?" His voice came out in a croak, with an embarrassing crack he hadn't heard in years.  
  
Sam's eyes snapped back up, and he leaned forward as he reached for a glass on the table. "Hey, Dean. How are you feeling?"  
  
Dean’s next effort to speak only ended in a hoarse grunt, and Sam raised the glass, angling the straw to Dean’s lips. Water, cold and crisp, hadn’t tasted this good in years.  
  
After a few mouthfuls, his tongue was down to something like normal size and his voice less like sandpaper in his throat. "What happened?"  
  
Sam’s brow creased, and he looked more worried. “Do you remember anything?”  
  
Dean started to shake his head, then gave it up as a bad idea. They’d left for the hunt, hadn’t they? There had been darkness and stars and the ground uneven beneath his boots and Sam beside him and...even that much might have been part of whatever dream he’d just had. “We were hunting, right? Did we get jumped?” Shit, was Sam hurt? Would he just be sitting there with a notebook on his lap if he were hurt?  
  
Sam was still watching him intently, eyes never leaving Dean's face. His mouth had a new set to it. "A second fuath knocked your head against a rock, out by the river. Can you feel all your limbs? How’s your vision?"  
  
Dean thought about it. His body felt heavy and removed, but he could shift his legs and arms and feel his fingers and toes. "No, nothing weird...Sam, how long have I been out of it?"  
  
“A little over twelve hours,” Sam said tersely.  
  
“Shit.” Dean let his head fall back onto the pillow. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember more about the river. How the hell did they get back to the hotel? “What the hell happened?”  
  
Sam drew a breath. “I killed the fuath. Dragged you away from the riverbank, toward the Impala. Then you woke up, but were in and out, w-walking but s-stumbling into me, and then this car slowed down by the road—saw my flashlight, I guess. It turned out to be that waitress. D-Darla? She stopped to ask if we were okay, then she saw—your c-condition. Offered to give us a ride back into town, and maybe to the doctor if you n-needed it.” Sam took a deep breath, making a small, futile gesture. “I didn’t know how else...I had my knife, so I could...but I remembered what you said, about how most reals are nice and mean well and want to help. And she seemed...safe. So I said okay and we helped you into the car. You were talking and seemed pretty awake, except your speech was a little—like some nights, after you go out. You told Darla you definitely didn’t need a doctor, that it was just a scrape, and we just needed to get back to the motel. I gave her the address. Are you feeling dizzy?"  
  
Dean had closed his eyes in an attempt to cope with the idea of Sam talking to people—well, one person, but in a prolonged conversation, of his own initiative, when Dean had clearly been worse than useless. He opened them again and shook his head slightly, with better success this time. "No, Sam, it's just...holy shit." He grinned, but Sam didn't smile back. He looked just as serious and tense as he had when Dean first woke up. Dean's eyes fell to the notepad in his lap. "What's that for?"  
  
Sam smoothed the top sheet, running his fingers over the edges. "I've been keeping notes of any changes in your condition, in case...I wanted a record so I could show—the doctors, or whoever, at the hospital. Darla asked again, several times, if we were sure you shouldn’t see a doctor, and she wrote down her number for us to call her, no matter what, to check in.”  
  
Dean whistled low. “Holy shit, Sammy. You scored your first chick’s number and I don’t remember a thing.”  
  
Sam bit his lip. “Maybe we should go to a doctor. Memory loss, that’s...that’s not good, could be a sign of something worse—”  
  
“Nah, Sammy, don’t worry. This ain’t the first time I’ve had trouble piecing together a night.” Dean tried for his cheekiest grin, and Sam finally managed a wobbly smile, a poor imitation of the one just yesterday.  
  
Dean took a good hard look at him. Sam was pale and pinched, but that wasn't much different from how he generally looked, especially under stress, although Dean had just begun to think he'd started to fill those edges out.  
  
Dean glanced at the other bed. Sam was always obsessively, neurotically tidy, but it didn't look like he had even sat on the bed. "Did you get any shut-eye, or was I just that gorgeous to watch?”  
  
Sam hesitated. "I d-didn’t want to miss anything, in case you...”  
  
Sam’s chair looked pretty damn uncomfortable, and Sam agreed, if his hunched posture over the notebook was any clue. Slowly, stiffly, Dean worked his left arm out from under the sheet and patted the space beside him. "C’mere."  
  
Sam hesitated for just a moment before setting the legal pad aside and moving quickly around to the other side of the bed. He crawled cautiously to Dean’s side, careful not to jostle him, and stretched out facing him, pressing his hands between his knees.  
  
Dean gingerly turned on his side, wincing at the throb in his head. Sam's eyes flickered. "Careful."  
  
"It's okay, dude." Dean reached for his face, and Sam's eyes fluttered shut for a moment. Dean traced the line of his jaw, then smoothed his hair back, letting his hand follow down his neck and the length of his spine. "You did good, Sammy," he said softly. "You did real good. I'm so proud of you."  
  
Sam shivered, the tightly repressed tension finally rising to the surface. "I tried," he said in a low voice. "It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, with you...knowing what was at stake."  
  
"You did real good." Smiling, Dean started again at the top of his spine.  
  
But Sam’s breath caught, the scrunch in his forehead mirrored in his shut eyes and twisted mouth, his eyelashes already damp. “Hey, hey,” Dean said, resting his hand on the back of Sam’s neck.  
  
“I d-didn’t do good.” Sam took in a shuddering breath. “I didn’t, because y-you got hurt.”  
  
“No, no. Dude, that’s not how it works. Yeah, we watch each other’s backs, ‘cause we’re a team—but if one of us gets KOed by a baddie, it ain’t the other one’s fault, okay?” Dean did not mention that he’d have one hell of a time forgiving himself if he let any more damage come to his beautiful, battered kid. “Hunters get scraped up. It happens, even with the world’s best partner. And as far as partners go, I’m not gonna get better than the one I’ve got, Sam.”  
  
“You could,” Sam whispered, tear-streaked face half pressed into the pillows. “Any hunter would be better than a f-freak.”  
  
“ _Hey_.” Dean’s grip tightened on the back of Sam’s neck. Sam immediately tensed, stilling right down to his lungs, and Dean swore silently at himself as he shifted his hand immediately to Sam’s shoulder, rubbing circles. “Sammy. That’s not what you are, remember? No way. I know a freak when I see one, and you are  _not_ one.”  
  
Sam’s frame shook in near-silent sobs, but he let Dean draw him closer, until Sam’s hair tickled Dean’s chin. “I don’t  _know_ —I can’t  _do_ the things r-reals can. I’m not g-good, you sh-should have someone better...”  
  
“Sammy.” Dean closed his eyes. “I have the one I want, okay? You can do lots of things no one else can. Fucking impressive, okay? Anyone else would have a hell of a time learning everything you have so far. No way they’d catch on so fast.”  
  
Sam’s sobs quieted as Dean ran his hand through his hair, staring out the window across the room. Finally, his voice emerged, steadier. “I chose the hunt.”  
  
Dean let go of Sam’s head, pulling back to look him in the face. “Yeah, and it was a damn good one. People were getting hurt, Sam, and you helped stop it.”  
  
Sam let out one last shuddering sigh, his tight grip on the front of Dean’s pajama shirt never loosening. Finally he opened his eyes, red but still full of that same unshakable resolve. It drove Dean crazy, sometimes, how Sam hadn’t a clue how strong he was. “I’ve never been able to save anyone before,” he said quietly. “Never anyone that—mattered. And it’s good, important, but it’s not worth...seeing you hurt.”  
  
Dean wanted to pull Sam close again, brush his hair and tell him that it would be okay, but the truth was that this was  _hunting_. It was a dangerous, crazy, unstable job, and it wasn’t always okay, because most hunters died before they even knew what they were doing, and the rest died bloody because they could never stop. Dean didn’t know a lot in the world, but he knew what he was.  
  
“Sam, what you’ve got to understand is that I’m not doing this because you wanted us to.” Dean couldn’t pull him closer, had to keep looking Sam in the eye, but he could wipe away the smear of tears beneath his eyes. “I’m terrified for you every time you’re out there with me, every time we go up against some evil sonovabitch. But if you weren’t here, I’d still be doing this, Sammy. I stopped when I first got you out, when you were still getting your bearings, but...I’m a hunter, Sammy. I would have gone after those...what did you call them?”  
  
“Fuath,” Sam said, voice croaking.  
  
“Yeah, the fuath. I would have gone after those furry bastards all on my own, and I probably would have gotten jumped just the same. There wouldn’t have been anyone to drag my sorry ass to the road, or take down the one that knocked me out, but I would have gone anyway. You  _saved_  me, Sam, because I’m just a stubborn fuck who’s going to keep putting his life on the line until there’s something’s stronger, faster, better than me. Or until you tell me to stop. So what do you say, Sam? You gonna keep my sorry ass in one piece, or should we go back to Boulder and I’ll try to teach myself how to survive in a job behind a desk?”  
  
Sam blinked, hard and fast, and then took a deep breath. “You mean that? That...that I help you?”  
  
“Sam, I wouldn’t be here right now without you.” And damn if Dean didn’t mean that in more ways than one.  
  
“I’m just...I don’t want you to get hurt, Dean.” But Sam looked like he was wavering, like he thought that maybe he should be there too.  
  
And finally, finally Dean could pull him close, press his mouth to Sam’s forehead, because that, that was as close as he could get to a yes, and they were both still alive and damn but wasn’t it good to have back-up, and know that Sam cared, even if the manifestation of that care scared the crap out of him sometimes.  
  
“I’ll do my best. But in the meantime, let’s save people. Hunt things. Okay?”  
  
Sam nodded, and reached up to wrap his arms around Dean too. “Okay.” And if his hug was almost too tight, his breath still fast and shaky, Dean could understand the feeling.


	21. Chapter 21

“Honey, I’m home!” Dean swung the door shut, brandishing an oversized plastic bag. “And I brought home the bacon!”  
  
Sam blinked, looking up from the laptop before him on the small hotel-room table.  “Bacon?  Do we have...a hotplate?”  
  
“Nah, dude, the other bacon. Your kind of bacon.”  Dean overturned the bag on their second bed that held their duffels.  Out rolled bright, shiny textbooks, with those sharp corners that stabbed like a bitch, and then a backpack from the bottom of the bag.  “Honest-to-God schoolbooks, from a real McCoy schoolbook supply place. You wouldn’t believe it, Sam, those guys spent a good forty-five minutes trying to talk me into buying a gross of these babies, just because they’re the real shit they use in schools and everything.  They’ve got homework assignments and worksheets and lesson plans, even the answers in the back.  I got a set for ninth grade, figure you can start out there. I’m betting dollars to donuts it’ll be a piece of cake for you to catch up, but anything else you need we can scrounge as it comes up.”  
  
Sam’s lips parted, and he stood, stepping closer to the bed.  He moved his fingers slowly over one of the glossy covers, then turned to Dean.  “All these...are for me?”  
  
“Well, I sure as hell ain’t gonna fight you for them.”  Dean cleared his throat.  “Got you a backpack, too, just like all the kids carry their books in.”  
  
For a moment, it looked like too much for Sam. He blinked fast, his breath halting, and Dean wondered if maybe this hadn’t been as good an idea as he’d expected.  Then Sam turned, and Dean was almost knocked over, staggering back from the force of Sam’s hug.  In the squeeze, Dean felt the press of Sam’s lips to his cheek, a whispered, “Thank you,” before Sam stepped back, overcome and shy once more.  
  
For the next few weeks, Dean had a difficult time peeling Sam away from the books any time they weren’t actively working on their next hunt. He had to coax Sam into leaving them in the Impala during meals, or to put them away for bed.  Sam had no attention to spare for the television that he was cautiously starting to enjoy, or for fiddling with the laptop. All his hours were spent poring over the books, flipping through each one as though he couldn’t decide where to start.  Then Dean got him a notebook and some pens and highlighters (barely restraining himself from a packet of gold star stickers), and Sam seized them with unprecedented glee.  He built a schedule for himself, charting out an hour per subject for every day, and kept to it with an almost religious devotion.  Dean hadn’t seen anything excite his kid for this long before, not other books, libraries, successful hunts, or even the ocean.  
  
The unexpected fervor took him aback a little—though don’t get him wrong, he wasn’t _complaining_ about seeing Sam this goddamn _radiant_ , practically bouncing with energy each morning to crack open his books.  He’d even started arguing with Dean more, new defiance and obstinacy in his voice when it came to anything that detracted from his studies.  The first time he snapped, “I’ve got homework, Dean,” it actually rendered Dean speechless and blinking long enough for Sam to start looking uncertain and worried, but Dean pulled on a grin and threw up his hands in mock defeat.  
  
It only clicked a couple weeks later, when Sam was chattering away about the latest chapter in his biology textbook, and the waitress came over for a refill and Sam gave her this _brilliant_ , totally blinding smile, and Dean remembered other times when Sam hadn’t been able to talk about school, when he had frozen at the mere mention of it.  This was part of blending in, of ditching that _I’m a freak_ mindset that Dean tried to chip away at every turn and that kept reappearing, in nightmares, on hunts, in the basic day-to-day interactions that Dean had stopped thinking about by the time he was five and knew John wasn’t going to tell him why, really, they’d left home and Mom had gone away.  
  
Dean got it. Sam studied and researched freshman algebra with the same focus and intensity he brought to every hunt, to every strategy Dean taught him to stay safe out in the real world. And Sam saw those books, that classroom experience he couldn’t even fathom, as one less thing that separated him from other kids his age, from those skeptical and curious looks that made Dean want to draw his knife and wake up the sleepy diner.  
  
Sam wanted to feel normal, to fit in, even though no normal kid Dean had ever met took that sort of unearthly delight in biology (he certainly hadn’t). Dean couldn’t give him the whole normal-experience shebang, but he would sooner shoot himself in the foot than deflate Sam’s “isn’t school _great_ ” balloon.  
  
~*~  
  
When the phone rang, Dean checked the caller ID out of habit. His greetings for Bobby and Pastor Jim were vastly different from those reserved for girls to whom he had been drunk enough to give his real number. And lately, he’d had problems with hunters who thought his cell was a good way to harass him and Sam. A bunch of his contacts now had asterisks next to them (asterisk for “asshole”), and Dean didn’t pick those up.  
  
Most of them only got up the courage to call after they were drunk enough to forget that he’d remember their names in the morning.  If they needed his help so goddamn badly after what they had said about Sam, then they could damn well call Bobby.  
  
He wondered if this is how John had started, gradually weeding people out of his life after they made one too many comments about Mary or his personal obsessions. Dean couldn’t decide if trimming his contacts list was petty and vindictive or a completely logical decision. Sam mattered to him, more than anything, more than breathing and guns and double-bacon cheeseburgers, but he couldn’t think about the way he felt about Sam and the way Dad had loved Mom—obsessive, compulsive, angry, ardent—without feeling a little queasy. He’d loved his mom, but loving Mom and living with the hole she’d left in his dad were two different things—or supposed to be, but sometimes they got kinda tangled up.  
  
And the name flashing on the phone now was _Dad._  
  
Dean stared, shocked. They hadn’t talked…they hadn’t talked in a hell of a long time, not in person since…not even by phone since the hellish six months when Dean had been waiting for Sam’s paperwork to go through. John had called about every week—more if he had been drinking—and every conversation had left Dean wanting to shred something, beat the shit out of someone, shoot something—sometimes himself. And since Sam, silence. A silence that Dean knew didn't mean John had forgotten or forgiven—fuck, when had John ever forgiven anything?—but that he couldn’t or wouldn’t bring himself to communicate in any way with the son who had turned his back on him.  
  
Dean hit the answer button on the phone.  
  
“Dad?” he said. Sam looked up. Dean suddenly, painfully, wished that Sam were not there, were anywhere but here. He could feel it coming, the bile and anger rising in his throat, the way his hand clenched on the phone.  
  
“Dean, tell me it’s not goddamn true.” John’s voice was exactly as he remembered it. Rough, angry, cutting.  
  
Dean felt the old anger struggling up. Easy to forget John when Sam kissed him, when Sam was snuggled in his bed every night, and he had the Impala, hunting, Bobby and the road— _fuck, when did it get easy to forget Dad?—_ but it was easy to remember how it felt, too, to want only one thing in his life, and be told over and over again by the only person he had always trusted with everything that it was dirty and horrible and twisted to want it.  
  
And sometimes, yeah, it was dirty and twisted to want Sam the way he did.  
  
“Tell you what’s not true?” he asked. There were a lot of things John could mean. _You sleep with that kid? You get hot looking at him? You put him in danger?_  
  
“Tell me you did _not_ lose your goddamned head so far as to give that _freak_ our name!”  
  
Sam was clearly trying not to listen, but Dean knew that he heard everything. Hell, John was shouting loud enough that Dean could have held the phone at arm's length and still heard every word just fine. Which meant that Sam heard every word. Dean saw the flinch, a big one, and wanted, abruptly, to kill something. And the only thing that he could break in the room was the phone.  
  
Sam stood, gesturing at the door. “I’m going to…I need…” Shaking his head skittishly, he grabbed his coat and a door key and let himself out.  
  
Dean was dimly glad that Sam had remembered that much. It wasn’t that cold yet in Alabama, but he hated it when Sam didn’t care about himself, didn’t seem to realize that cold and heat and rain and sun were things that he could and should protect himself against.  
  
With Sam out of sight, Dean’s attention snapped back to what John was shouting into his ear.  
  
“I thought it was just sonsofbitches messing with me the first couple times with ‘Dean named his pet after you’ and ‘You giving freaks your blessing now, Winchester?’ But then I went to the fucking Roadhouse and fucking Alan Dubois told me that you’d been introducing the freak using our name.”  
  
“Sam is not a freak,” Dean snapped. “And he’s mine, I got him out, so that is his fucking name.”  
  
John showed no sign of listening, or even pausing while Dean spoke.  He _never_ listened, and Dean had never seen that before because it had never occurred to him that John _should_ listen to him, because he had always been _Dad_.  
  
“Sam fucking Winchester, Dean? That’s our _name._ That was your mother’s name.”  
  
“Really?” Dean said. “Because it seems to me that her name was Mary fucking Campbell, Dad. That’s what the textbooks say.”  
  
“You do _not_ swear with your mother’s name, you ungrateful little bastard,” John snarled. “Not when you’ve been fucking a freak that killed her.”  
  
“Sam is _not_ a freak, and he was less than a year old when—“  
  
“I don’t care what perverted things he does to you, that boy-creature is a monster and that’s the fucking enemy.”  
  
John was wrong and stupid and _wrong._ They did nothing, Sam did nothing, Dean tried like hell and fuck not to _ask_ him to do anything, but he _wanted_ and that (when Sam, despite all the progress and all the little bickering about how important his homework was, would sure as hell still do anything he said if Dean asked the right way; and when he still froze and shrunk away like a whipped dog from any sign of anger) was wrong, and _that_ was why it hurt.  
  
“Sam matters to me, why can’t you understand that?”  
  
“It’s a toy,” John snapped back. “I don’t care what jollies you get out of playing with an abomination like that. Maybe it’s got two assholes, for all I fucking know. But we both know you can’t share any fucking thing that’s important with a monster. You can’t be family with a monster.  I wouldn’t have given you the fucking Impala if I thought you’d end up spreading a freak in the backseat.”  
  
Dean choked, anger and shame tangling up inside him. Because if John had angled it right, Dean would have broken. He knew that what he wanted from Sam was fucked up, when the kid was just a kid, not even seventeen and so brainwashed that he would have let Dean do anything. Yeah, he would have let Dean spread him in the backseat, and would probably beg for it, if Dean had told him to. And, yeah, the thought of Sam laid out beneath him, disheveled and smiling with a shy hand on Dean’s hip made him simultaneously ache and hate himself. Bad enough that he couldn’t stop holding Sam, kissing him, wrapping his arms and legs around that too-thin body, rocking him to sleep when the nightmares got bad. He had tried but couldn’t stop, not when Sam looked at him like he was his entire world, like he'd lose everything if Dean left him, and Dean was all he had to hold onto and believe in.  Even when Dean knew that Sam had no way, no ability to tell what the hell he wanted.  Sam had no way to know if Dean was an abusive asshole, no idea that there could be anything better. And when Dean tried telling himself that he was soothing Sam, doing this for Sam, he knew damn well that he felt that undeniable shot to his groin every time Sam looked at him and seemed to want something from him. Want anything at all.  
  
“Sam and I don’t…” he began, and had no idea where to go from there.  
  
John felt the weakness. Whether it had been a chink in someone’s emotional armor or a monster’s lowered guard, John had always been able to sense weaknesses and go for the belly. That’s what made him an exemplary hunter. But fuck did it hurt when John went unhesitatingly for his throat.  
  
“So it’s not the fucking backseat, and you’re not trying to make it family.” Sarcasm dripped from John’s voice. “I don’t care if you’re riding the freak in a bed or it's riding you, Dean, but you can’t let monsters get under your skin. They’ll rip it off and wear it like a coat.  Didn’t your mother’s death teach you fucking anything?”  
  
“It taught me that people _leave_ , Dad,” Dean snapped. “But you could have taught me that just fine without her.”  
  
Silence, long enough for Dean to realize what he'd said and wonder if he'd gone too far. Then John started again, quiet, choked fury in his voice: “You dishonor her name. You disgrace her life and her death. She staked evil, Dean. What the fuck are you doing, sucking it?”  
  
“Fuck yourself, Dad,” Dean choked out. He wished he could mean it. He wished he had the balls to hang up the phone.  
  
John’s voice was suddenly gentler, angry but calmer, coaxing. “Just put a bullet in its brain and come back, Dean. It doesn’t really matter, it’s not family, and it can’t really share your life. You can’t share anything important with a monster. It’s not human and never will be.”  
  
Dean stared at his hand on his lap, stared at his shoes, stared at the floor. He was glad that Sam wasn’t here. Fucking glad that Sam wasn’t here. “No,” he said. “I could never hurt Sam. And I’ll never let you hurt him.”  
  
“It’s just a freak, Dean. A fucking freak.” John’s voice broke on the snarl or some kind of sob.  
  
“Sam’s as human as I am, human as you are,” Dean said. _Not saying much, fuck-ups that we a_ _re. Sick to put us in the same class as Sam, when he’s so much better_.  
  
 _“THAT’S JUST WHAT IT FUCKING WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE, YOU GODDAMNED IDIOT._ You little shit, I raised you smarter than this!”  
  
“You didn’t fucking raise me, you absent, twisted—"  
  
“Don’t you talk to me while your whore is probably licking your—  
  
“You don’t have the fucking right to talk to me about Sam when it was your fault Mom—“  
  
“You bring up your mother and I’ll come shoot you myself!”  
  
“I’d like to fucking see you try,” Dean snarled.  
  
“You’re not my fucking son.”  
  
“You’ve said that before.”  
  
John paused, and Dean panted, struggling to catch his breath through the blind rage, what had been said, what he had said, and what that meant sinking slowly, horribly, into him. That silence hurt more than anything John had said to him, because in it he saw the end.  
  
“Yeah,” John said. “But this time I mean it. You’re not my fucking son. I see you, I’m putting it down and you with it. Enjoy your whore.” And then he hung up.  
  
Dean sat on the bed and looked at the phone. He was shaking. When the fuck had he started shaking?  
  
He looked at the phone and scrolled down the list of contacts. _Dad_ was right there, all caps. He highlighted it and thought about changing it. Thought about deleting it. Why should it still say _Dad_ when that didn’t mean John Winchester anymore? It should be something else. Something that wasn’t _Dad_. John, maybe. Winchester, maybe, because if Dean didn’t count himself and Sam—and he did, fuck, John had had no right to say Sam couldn’t have a name, a goddamned name of his own, when he had had nothing for his entire life. It wasn’t like they owned the fucking name. There were fucking guns named Winchester that were worth more than John and Dean combined. Maybe he should have found Sam another name, a better one, because right then, Dean felt that being a Winchester was more a curse, more the brand of stupid dicks and killers than anything to be proud of.  
  
In the end, Dean didn’t change John’s contact name, didn’t delete it, because seeing the word that used to represent his whole world, and knowing that it represented nothing…that hurt. And Dean deserved to hurt, for Mom, for Sam, and maybe for the ghost called Dad.  
  
He flipped the phone shut, snatched up his jacket, and slammed the motel door behind him.  
  
Dean almost collided into Sam after turning the first sharp corner. Sam had been leaning against the brick wall beside the soda vending machine, hands tucked in his pockets, eyes fixed on the ground.  He brought his hand up when Dean barreled into him, fingers barely brushing Dean’s shoulder before Dean swore and took a step back. Sam started, first away, then took a timid step toward him.  Dean wanted to bolt, take off in another direction and not look back until he could fight down all this destructive emotional shit he shouldn’t be exposing to Sam.  Sam wasn’t supposed to see this.  
  
“Hey,” Sam said, and Dean forced himself to look Sam in the face.  
  
His first thought was, _fuck_ , he’d done it again, scaring the crap out of his kid. It had been ages and it was Dean’s fault _again_ , always fucking things up, always making Sam flinch and cower.  But then he realized this wasn’t the same blind terror he knew too well.  Sam was...worried.  Intensely worried. Maybe...worried _for_ Dean, rather than because of him.  
  
Christ, he was a fucking mess.  
  
“Dean,” Sam said, very softly.  “Are you okay?”  
  
Dean ran a hand through his hair, twisting around to catch sight of the Impala, gleaming where it was parked in front of their room.  “Tell you what, Sammy. I gotta go out tonight. Wanna come?  I think...I think I could use you watching my back because I’m not...yeah, I’m not, so if you could....  You cool with that?”  
  
Sam drew a quick breath, but he didn’t hesitate for so much as a second.  “Yeah, Dean. I’m cool.”  
  
~*~  
  
Dean started off the night with a double shot of Jack Daniels and kept going full speed from there.  
  
Sam watched, nursing his Coke and trying to keep his eye on the rest of the bar. They’d gone to bars before, usually in the afternoon or early evening, so he wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the smoke and noise and press of people laughing and becoming loose-limbed and clumsy, but tonight was a magnitude greater, louder and less controlled. Maybe that was true, maybe this was a busier night or a different mood, or there was a birthday party, or maybe it was the way Dean drank like he was burning straight alcohol to fuel his smile, and shoved back at anyone who gave him the smallest excuse, when every other night he had glanced at Sam and deflected.  
  
It was getting easier to be around reals.  Mostly because he was pretty confident here that he wasn’t the center of attention; no one seemed to take any notice of him, in fact.  He wasn’t giving off any freak-vibes, because he’d learned how to blend in, at least for this kind of situation. Sure, he was much younger than everyone else in the room. But he was safe with his innocent, non-alcoholic drink and—by pretending to be a real like them—he could stand up for himself, especially when doing anything less would make more trouble for Dean.   
  
Sam didn’t know what John had said, except that it had been about _him_ , and that had enough guilt wracking his stomach that he had been relieved when Dean forgot about dinner.  Dean certainly had a right to be upset with him, to do many worse things that Sam had almost stopped thinking about every day, but while Sam could tell that Dean was upset — it wasn’t yet directed at _him_.  All the same, Dean’s behavior now worried him.  It reminded him of the first times Dean had returned drunk to the apartment or motel, how Sam hadn’t known what to expect.  But at least there it had just been them, without other reals to get involved.  And he hadn’t had to _watch_ Dean barrel toward that stage of inebriation.  
  
Not that Dean ever _left_ him, really. No matter how many drinks went down his throat, Dean circled back to him, squeezing his shoulder, going on about this chick he’d been chatting up, or a guy giving him the stink-eye from across the room (“I could take him, Sam, wouldn’t cost me more than a half a minute and a couple lungfuls of air, you know”). Sam nodded, smiled, let himself clench the edge of Dean’s jacket in a bone-white grip. If Dean noticed, he never said. Every time Dean started to slide away, off the barstool and back into the crowd with another drink, Sam let him go.  
  
By one a.m., Dean had lost two games of pool, almost stabbed a guy in the eye trying to throw darts, and was slurring so badly Sam could barely pick out anything but _Sammy_ and _‘nother drink_. The bartender interpreted every gesture as a demand for another shot.  
  
When Dean started flirting, hard, with an equally drunk woman who had earlier been hanging off a muscular man, Sam pressed his lips together, paid the tab from Dean’s wallet—Dean had pressed it into his hands sometime after the dart game but before he started flirting with anything that moved—pushed his way through the crowd, and caught Dean by his sleeve.  “Dean, we should go.”  
  
Dean looked at him and flushed, jerking his hand off the woman’s neck, where he had been kneading the line of skin between her see-through black top and hairline. “Shammy,” he slurred. “I din’ mean to…Gawd, it doeshn’t mean. Ahh, fuck I din’ mean…” Dean swayed, his eyes blanking, expression lost. “M fucking washted, Shammy.”  
  
Sam saw a dark head leaving the bathroom, and his grip tightened on Dean’s jacket. The boyfriend was coming back. “Dean, we need to get out of here,” he said, low and urgent. “C’mon, Dean, let’s go.”  
  
Too late. The boyfriend—taller than Dean, and heavier by about 50 pounds—tapped Dean, hard on the shoulder, while his girlfriend stared at him and gasped dramatically. “You messing with my girl, punk?” he demanded.  
  
Dean looked at the guy, and then at the woman. “She really didn’t sheem much like yours, dishclout. An’ you’re not my fucking dad.”  
  
 _Yeah, Dean,_ Sam thought, as the guy growled and threw a wild haymaker at Dean’s face, _that_ would _be the first coherent thing you’ve said in an hour._  
  
Maybe Dean couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a dart, but he dodged the fist okay, and punched the guy in the jaw.  The boyfriend stumbled back, crashed into the table behind him—the table held, but the beer bottles didn’t—and got up with a roar. The fight spread, the boyfriend’s buddies jumping in, along with the men who had lost their beer, and Sam suddenly not giving a damn if they were reals or anything at all if he had to break some fuck's arm to stop him from cutting up Dean with the jagged edge of a bottle.  No one here knew he was a monster, and it was, always, easy to go for the throat when Dean was on the line.  
  
Sam picked up a pool cue.  
  
When he heard the distant wail of police sirens and the boyfriend was knocked out beneath a table, the girlfriend nowhere in sight, Sam decided it was time to blow this joint. He grabbed Dean before he could get brained with a broken piece of barstool and towed him out the back door.  
  
At the Impala, Dean stumbled to the door, half-slouched and half-fell into the seat and fumbled the keys into the ignition while muttering about his swollen eye and people who brought beer bottles to a fist fight. “I kin do thish, Shammy. Promishing, promishes, promishory promintary…”  
  
The entire time they drove, Sam kept his eyes closed and his hand on Dean’s thigh, feeling the muscles tense and flex beneath his jeans as Dean braked abruptly, accelerated in jerks and starts, and swore.  
  
They didn’t get very far. Dean had barely pulled into a mostly deserted Walmart parking lot before he killed the engine and put his head on the steering wheel.  
  
The longer he just sat there, the jumpier Sam felt. Dean was drunk, really really drunk, drunker than Sam had ever seen him, and Sam hadn’t researched nearly enough, he didn’t know if Dean would be fine, or if he needed food, water, blankets, or an emergency room, and if he needed something Sam _had_ to help him with but didn’t know how.  
  
When Sam had just decided to reach out, feel for fevers and shaking and bleeding at the very least, Dean spoke without looking up from the wheel. “I’m so fucking sorry, Sam.”  
  
Sam jerked back. “It’s okay. I’m okay. You’re okay. We’re good.” He tried to smile, wishing Dean would look up, meet his eyes.  
  
“Yeah.” Still not looking at him, Dean opened the door, took three steps away from the Impala and emptied his guts across the asphalt. Then he straightened shakily, walked back, closed the door, curled up and went to sleep.  
  
Sam stared, swallowed, and then very cautiously brushed his fingers through the edge of Dean’s hair, before tucking himself up against the window and bracing his arms over his knees to watch Dean sleep.  
  
~*~  
  
The next morning, Dean woke up, groaned, and poked gingerly at his right eye where he was sure he was developing one hell of a beautiful black eye. He felt hungover and shitty like...well, like several people had tried to beat in his face with what was on hand in a drinking establishment.  
  
“Fuck,” he said, and Sam, slumped over in the passenger seat, jerked awake and, after blinking at Dean groggily for a moment, began rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Dean was relieved to see that Sam looked fine, except for maybe a small scratch on his cheek.  
  
Dean was pretty fuzzy on the fight or what had started it, though he had the feeling he deserved every bruise. He also had a hangover to end all hangovers—the entire world pulsed in time with his heartbeat, Sam’s wide eyes expanding and contracting in his vision like some kind of cartoon dog’s—but he could still remember how they had gotten to the parking lot last night. Or rather, waking up in the driver’s seat with the Impala’s keys in his pocket told a pretty convincing story.  
  
“Sam, I need food,” Dean rasped. “And Tylenol. Maybe morphine.”  
  
Sam blinked, shook himself, and then reached over the backseat for the first-aid kit.  
  
Dean caught his elbow. “Joking, Sam. You okay?”  
  
Sam smiled, briefly. Dean felt, again, like a fucking idiot for coming so close to messing this up. “Yeah, Dean.”  
  
“Good. Let’s get breakfast, and then I’m gonna teach you how to drive.” He dragged himself out of the Impala, and then waited, leaning against the door while Sam worked through the freeze, the panic, whatever he was thinking about now. Much as Dean wanted to do this right, he didn’t have the energy to look up right now. And he wasn’t going to argue about this.  
  
“Dean—“ Sam began, one white-knuckled hand gripping the top of the Impala’s door.  
  
“Nope, breakfast,” Dean said. He tried to smile, but it probably didn’t come out very well. The leading edge of dawn light coming up behind him hurt like a mother, and he fumbled for his sunglasses. Sam liked to think that he didn’t argue, that he didn’t have an opinion. Dean enjoyed, sometimes, being enough of a pain-in-the-ass to prove him wrong.  
  
He started off to the Walmart where chips, coffee, and hopefully extra-strength Tylenol awaited, while Sam followed close at his heels, watching like he expected Dean to fall over any second.  
  
They didn’t make a habit of touring grocery stores, as they usually found whatever they needed at truck stops and convenience stores, but Sam had gotten comfortable even in the bigger ones and, lately, even department stores.  Dean’s hangover this morning might not have promoted the clearest of thinking, but he was willing to bet that the preoccupation of driving would distract Sam from his usual produce-section nerves.  
  
The morning staff in Walmart glanced with tired suspicion when he staggered through the doors, but left them along while Dean snagged beef jerky and Tic-Tacs off the shelves.  "Sam," he said, "I won't say this often, so listen close." He could almost feel Sam’s gaze on him, but he kept going, picking up a can of salsa off the shelf and weighing it in his hand. "Sometimes, I am a fucking dumbass who does dumbass shit. Like last night. Yeah, last night was a grade-A dumbass, shining Dean-Winchester-fuck-up moment. And I know you know that, you’re plenty smart enough to tell when I’m flying off the fucking rails.” Dean had to stop, take a shaky breath, consciously set the salsa jar back down. “And last night was the worst that...just the worst. I know that. And I’m gonna try to be better, I’m gonna be better for you, Sam, but I need...I’m gonna want....what I’m trying to say is that you can say: ‘Dean, stop being a fucking dumbass’. Fuck, I’d be grateful. Just, knock me out or something, all right?”  
  
For a second, Sam stared at him as though he’d never seen him before. He had that same old horrible look in his eyes as though he thought that this was a test with no right answers, and Dean felt his stomach—already roiling from too much alcohol and not enough common sense—clench hard around his spine. And then Sam—not really smiling, but no longer holding that pinched desperate look of borderline terror—ducked his head. "Yeah, Dean.  I got it."  
  
"Good."  Dean exhaled, rubbing at his eyes under the sunglasses and grabbing a couple boxes of Pop Tarts off the shelves. "That's another reason you're learning to drive—no, don’t look at me like that, I’m not going to argue about this with you.”  
  
Sam crossed his arms and gave him a narrow-eyed look.  "I thought I was allowed to argue whenever I wanted."  
  
Dean winced at the sound of his own words, and then cast Sam a look of grudging approval.  "Yeah, well—then we can argue later, but just...Christ, not while my head feels like it’s got a marching band with a double drumline bashing away inside. We can hash this out when it’s a fair fight, just...let me get some coffee. And some grease.” Dean picked a can off the shelf near the flour and blinked at it for a second. When the “Crisco” registered, he hastily fumbled it back onto the shelf. “Not that much grease. Fuck it, look at me, Sam, I don’t even know what this _is._ ” He held out a bag of potato starch with the plaintive air of a child who couldn’t get Legos to hold together.  
  
Sam took the bag carefully, turned it between his hands, read the ingredients, and then handed it back to him. “It’s used to thicken soups and stews.”  
  
“Sam, you are a fucking lifesaver.” Dean sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. “But, seriously. I know you don’t want to drive, I know that that’s a...a lot. I learned when I was like, seven or something, so it’s like second nature, but I know that it can be huge, but... I’m asking you to do this for me. Thinking about how wasted I was last night and what could have happened.... I could have crashed us, you know? I could have wrecked my _baby_. It would mean a lot if I could count on you to get behind the wheel if I get hurt, or wasted, or just need to take a couple winks while we’re on the road but we gotta keep going. I’m not asking you to say right now you’ll get us through downtown Chicago without breaking a sweat, but just—baby steps, like everything else we’ve been doing.  We’ll start easy, you’ll let me know when you’ve had enough for one day, and that’ll be okay. Can you...give that a try with me, Sam?”  
  
Sam took a slow, careful breath, his eyes closed. When he opened them, they were sober and sad. “I don’t want to drive.”  
  
Dean dropped his head into his hands. “Fuck, Sam, I don’t want you to—”  
  
He stopped when Sam grabbed him by the wrists, tugged his hands down. “I don’t want to, but to help you, to help keep you safe—I will.” And there was no fear in his eyes, just grim determination, and Dean felt a slow, exultant grin spread over his face.  
  
“Sam, this is so awesome, you have no idea. We’re gonna take it slow, baby steps, but I’m sure you’re gonna win ‘safest driver in the state’ wherever the hell we might happen to be.”  
  
~*~  
  
Even when Sam, his quiet, thoughtful, nervous Sam, was being his most badass—looking people in the eye, bashing ghosts through the head—Dean worried about him. He worried about him most during hunts, when the monsters were coming hot and heavy and he thought that any second Sam might get cut open or blasted and Dean wouldn’t be able to get there in time. That featured in his nightmares more often than not.  
  
That fear that Sam would break at the first solid blow lasted until they fought the spider-yeti duo in the Appalachians.  
  
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a yeti. Dean thought that yetis lived in the Himalayas and were Buddhist or something—and Buddhists were peaceful, weren’t they?—but it certainly looked the part: massive, hairy, hunched, arms corded with muscles that would put Schwarzenegger to shame. Maybe it had eaten so many monks that the orange robes and happiness had gone to its brain.  
  
The lair was easy to find. Most hikers in the area had left travel plans with the local rangers, which had given them a general area to search. And the yeti had left a noticeable groove in the earth leading up to its cave. After a quick recon of the area, Dean crouched and peered into the cave.  
  
“Hey, Sam, keep an eye out. I’m going to check it out inside.”  
  
Sam gave him one of those looks that was growing more familiar: the worried, slightly skeptical expression that cast doubt on Dean’s sanity and ability to maintain his own safety.  Dean saw that look every time he handed Sam the keys to the Impala for a driving lesson.  
  
The look made Dean grin as he shifted his grip on the flashlight and improvised[ phurpa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C4%ABla_%28Buddhism%29) and took a first tentative step into the encompassing darkness.  
  
He felt his way with one hand on the rough wall, sweeping his light over the cave floor and opposite wall, which faded out of reach of the light’s beam within half a minute.  
  
Dean had no idea how far the cave went, or what might be watching him from its depths. He didn’t like the idea of spelunking too far and letting something cut off his exit (or get Sam where he waited at the entrance), so he wasn’t planning on going far.  Just enough to get a sense of how big a cave he was looking at, whether this could be the right one.  
  
Hyper-alert for the slightest noise or rustle echoing across the cave, Dean lurched sideways when his hand slid from rough stone to nothing. He clawed for balance, stumbled, swore as his ankle twisted in a hole like a fucking socket-wrench around a screw, and fell. He’d expected to hit a wall, something hard to answer the fresh throb in his ankle, but instead he hit some kind of springy, stringy material and bounced gently, inches away from the jagged wall.  
  
His first response—and even later, Dean thought that this was a pretty decent response—as he reached out, and his hands promptly stuck fast to the strands—was _what the fuck spiderweb?_ The second reaction, rising up like a wave in response to a deep, low growl from across the cave, was _fuck, no, Sam._  
  
He had kept his hold on the phurpa, but the flashlight had slipped from his fingers, catching on a lower part of the web, splashing its light over a section of uneven floor.  Dean struggled against the web, but that just wound the strands more thoroughly around his jeans until he had about as much chance of pulling away as he’d had escaping that clingy cheerleader back in Tampa.  
  
“Son of a bitch,” he snarled, and a second later the same throaty rumble he’d heard before answered, accompanied by the shuffle of feet echoing across the cave.  
  
Then, just to complete the nightmare: Sam’s hesitant voice called, “Dean?” from the cave entrance twenty feet away.  
  
“Sam!” he shouted, torn between telling him to stay back and hurry over to help cut him loose.  The yeti probably wouldn’t be considerate enough to lean over and shove its throat into Dean’s tiny phurpa. “Sam, watch out!”  
  
The yeti (Dean couldn’t see shit, but he was willing to bet his ass that nothing _good_ could come snarling out of a dark cave) growled louder, the heavy footfalls moving ever more quickly toward its prey.  
  
A second flashlight shone from the entrance, roaming across the floor to where Dean’s light fell, just in time for the yeti to step into view.  
  
It was eight feet of shaggy, matted fur (dirty with shit and mud, but pale under the stains), the flashlights glimmering off the long yellow fangs protruding from its lower jaw, and glowing red from the small beady eyes Dean saw fixed on himself.  
  
Then Sam, moving swiftly and decisively, crossed the cave to place himself between Dean and the yeti.  
  
Dean had told him that hunts would be dangerous. He had told him that if they ever went south, Sam should run like hell and get a rocket launcher, that he should _not_ stick around to get dead.  
  
What a fucking bad time for Sam to stop following his directives to the letter.  
  
But then again, the boy Dean saw, from his own twisted stance spider-glued to the damn wall, was nothing like the Sam he thought he knew.  
  
The yeti, discovering closer prey, growled again. Sam didn’t so much as flinch, his head tilted slightly as though he were considering nothing more challenging than a choice of cereal in the supermarket (though of course that would be _Dean’s_ look when considering cereal, Sam usually looked infinitely anxious unless there were Lucky Charms available).  Then he slowly crouched down, set his flashlight on a slanted rock where it would illuminate the area between them, and took a step forward, shifting his grip on his six-inch knife.    
  
“Hey, fuckwad,” Sam called, voice strong without a single stutter or hesitation. He was standing tall—no hunching, no cowering—and holding the phurpa Dean had given him with an easy confidence he barely managed with a dinner fork.  Every bone in his body radiated confidence, his shoulders taut yet almost relaxed in readiness, and the look on his face…Dean would have killed to see that look of perfect confidence and cocky self-assurance on Sam’s face every day.  
  
The monster lumbered forward. When it blinked, two sets of eyelids moved at slightly different speeds, like a camera closing its shutter a second after pressing the release. It blinked toward Sam once, twice, and then, as though it had found something it liked, its lips curled up to reveal rows and rows of curved, vicious teeth. This time its low-throated growl was enough to vibrate Dean’s body, made him jitter against the stones.  
  
At that point, Dean Winchester would have gone for one hell of a bigger knife.  
  
But Sam Winchester just smiled a little wider and adjusted his footing. “That’s right, you ugly son of a bitch. I’m right here.”  
  
When the yeti charged, Dean jerked forward, might have screamed Sam’s name, but he needn’t have bothered, could have saved that heartwrenching panic because Sam dodged the blow as though they had choreographed it for years, and brought the knife around to slash at the yeti’s gut.  
  
This wasn’t the same kid who wouldn’t look Dean in the eye, who flinched away from casual touches and hyperventilated in supermarkets. This was someone calm, competent, a flash of speed, a casually brutal application of force. This was _his Sam_ as Dean had never seen him: vibrantly alive, relaxed in his own skin, taking on a monster that topped him by three feet and hundreds of pounds. It was terrifying, invigorating, and one of the hottest things Dean had ever seen.  
  
Every swipe of a claw sent Sam spinning backward, smoothly evading every blow, only to dart forward and shove his slip of a blade into the monster’s thick hide. Every time the beast snapped forward, Sam was simply _gone_ , coming around for another attack, at another angle, often with an ingenuity or straight-up ballsiness Dean couldn't have imagined himself.  
  
And while the monster suffered dozens of wounds—tiny things that nevertheless left red streaks across its hide—Sam picked up nothing worse than ruffled hair in the backdraft from those massive, yellowed claws. He was the smoothest, gutsiest, best damn hunter Dean had ever seen.  
  
Dean wanted to hug him. He wanted to sell popcorn and tickets and cheer Sam on. But more than anything, what he wanted was to get free of the fucking sticky web and _fight_. Monsters had a hell of a lot of endurance and were a hell of a lot less breakable than most humans, and in a battle between a boy alone and a beast, the odds were in the beast’s favor.  
  
And underneath the giddy delight from watching Sam be awesome, worry grew that the faint skittering from deeper in the cave was whatever had _created_ the web in the first place.  
  
And then it happened, everything that Dean had been dreading from the first second that he’d felt the web wrap around him.  Sam stepped—just as smooth, just as easy, but _wrong,_ so fucking wrong, _Sam no—_ directly into one of the yeti’s blows. Dean felt his heart seize, and threw himself against his restraints even though he knew it was too, too late to see anything but Sam bleeding out across the floor. The yeti roared in triumph, Dean screamed as— _finally, and too fucking late—_ he felt the webbing around him start to give, and Sam, lips pressed together in a silent, thin line, used the yeti’s blow as leverage to shove his phurpa into the monster’s throat.  
  
The yeti’s roar of triumph turned into a desperate gurgle, and Sam, mouth still fixed, eyes focused and clear, used one arm to pull himself higher on the yeti’s body, and then twisted the phurpa, hard, to the side.  
  
Even from where Dean had stopped struggling—somewhere between when he’d thought that Sam was going to die, and the moment when he became _pure motherfucking awesome_ , Dean’s heart had stopped, and he wasn’t sure that it was beating even now as he stared in mute awe—he could see the white bone of the beast’s spine glinting out from the parted fur.  
  
The yeti thrashed, twisted, whimpered, and Sam rode the death throes all the way to the ground. When the thing was utterly still, unmoving, Sam cut the rest of the way through the neck, shoulders flexing with the force, and kicked the head away.  
  
There was a minute of silence save for the sound of Sam panting and Dean’s heartbeat pounding in his ears.  Sam was slightly hunched, one arm pressed to his side, but his face showed no sign of pain, nor of triumph. He looked over the yeti’s body, registering nothing but cool disdain and a little disgust, then glanced once around him before turning toward Dean.  “Dean, are you all right?”  
  
Dean was still struggling for an answer, to find the words, any words, for what he’d just seen (the _transformation_ , the most badass scene he’d ever witnessed, including anything in movies), when the second monster rushed out of the dark behind Sam.  
  
Dean saw the limbs flashing, bulbous body, too many sets of eyes, and he sucked in breath to shout a warning that Sam couldn’t have heard in time before Sam spun, threw himself forward on the ground, and the knife flashed upward to gut the Labrador-sized spider from eyes to thorax.  
  
The spider let out a high-pitched keen and toppled over, limbs twitching feebly, but clearly already dead.  Sam rolled to his feet, swaying slightly, and then stumbled over to Dean.  
  
“Dean, are you hurt? Can you focus? I’m here, I’ve got you.” Dean had said those exact words to Sam more than once, but it was strange from the other side, feeling Sam’s hands running down him, lightly checking for injuries. With the same blade he’d used to gut the yeti—the blood still steaming—Sam cut at the webbing around Dean’s arms. The knife couldn’t exactly slice the stuff, but it managed to scrape it away from the walls enough to leave Dean more or less free.  
  
“I…I’m awesome,” Dean said. But he wasn’t just awesome, he was _reeling_ from the Sam he had seen. He was in _awe_ at the competent, confident person he had witnessed, and wanted that fearless Sam next to him every day, (though maybe they could skip the kamikaze yeti-spider love combo next time).  “What about you? Fuck, Sam, I thought it gutted you before you took it down.”  
  
Sam shook his head quickly.  "Just a scratch. Come on.” He pulled Dean up, draping one of his web-covered arms over his shoulders, and started dragging both of them out of the cave. “Did you break your ankle?  Hit your head?”  
  
“Nah, Sammy, just a sprain.”  
  
Sam was breathing hard, Dean could feel him shaking slightly under his arm, but he knew it was more likely adrenaline withdrawal rather than the usual fear or nerves. Dean wasn’t so steady either, still half high just from watching the fight.  
  
They stumbled together out of the cave beneath a sky bright with stars, framed by the dark silhouettes of trees reaching above their heads.  
  
But by the time they had reached the Impala and Sam had loaded him into the backseat (just, Dean realized a second later, so he could apply an icepack to Dean’s ankle, not because he was going to ask for the keys), the kickass Sam had re-submerged beneath the quiet, hesitant boy he lived with every day, just this time wrapping his ankle skillfully without raising his head, touching only lightly and never because he wanted something.  
  
Dean had to say something. He didn’t want that marvelous stranger—amazing, still, to think that that had been _Sam_ out there—to slip away.  
  
He grabbed Sam’s hands as he was about to put the first-aid kit away, and Sam froze, looking down and away and anywhere but at Dean’s face.  
  
The words Dean had wanted to say ( _you’re amazing, you’re wonderful, you’re everything)_ stuck in his throat. Even if he said them, could the Sam that wouldn’t meet his eyes understand, or would they drive him even farther away? So he coughed, and switched to the most important point.  
  
“Are you sure you're not hurt?  I could have sworn those claws..."  
  
Sam shook his head. “It’s nothing, I can patch it when we get back.”  
  
“Let me check, just to be sure.” Dean scooted deeper into the Impala’s backseat and pulled Sam in with him.  He felt a disturbing, pleasurable and _wrong_ lurch to feel Sam’s body pressing in above him, his back against the familiar leather, but he pushed that out of the way and pulled Sam’s shirt up.  
  
Easy to think about nothing but Sam’s health when he saw the fresh claw marks scored into the already scarred skin of Sam’s chest. _That’s not fucking nothing._ Sure, not _death by punctured organs_ deep, but they were going to need stitches, and somehow Sam had been not just walking, but hauling him along too like he was in the peak of health. The only time he reacted was when Dean pasted one of the bigger bandages over the wounds and gently pressed a towel over his stomach to sponge up the blood oozing toward his waist.  
  
“We’ve gotta stitch those up.” He kept the growl out of his voice by the skin of his teeth, knowing the implied anger would just shut Sam down harder. “But not here. Should last until we get back to the hotel.” He reached into the first aid box beside Sam, pulled out the Vicodin bottle, and shook two into his hand. “Here, take these.”  
  
Sam leaned back slightly, posture relaxed, but still refusing to meet his eyes. “Dean, I could just use Tylenol, those are expensive—“  
  
“No.” Dean pushed the pills into his hand and snagged a half-full water bottle from the front seat to offer it to Sam.  
  
Sam downed both his pills dry and hesitated over the water bottle—the closest one had been Dean’s—but took a sip to wash them down.  
  
Dean knew he shouldn’t just be sitting there when Sam needed to be stitched up, but he couldn’t quite stop himself from touching Sam across the cheekbones, brushing his fingers below the eyes that he wished would meet his as fearlessly as they had met the yeti’s. "Come on, let’s get back.”  
  
On the ride back to the motel, Dean couldn’t stop glancing at Sam, trying to find the confidence he had seen just minutes ago in the teenager sprawled in the seat beside him.  
  
“You doing okay, Sam?” Dean asked, halfway there. “Pain gone down a bit?”  
  
“I’m fine,” Sam said, almost in wonder. “Fine fine _wonderful_.” He took a shaky breath, and then gave Dean one of those rare, heartbreakingly sweet smiles. Dean’s hands clenched on the wheel.  
  
“You were pretty rockin’ out there,” he said. “I…damn, you just blew me away. You took that sucker _down._ ”  
  
Sam shrugged, but he glowed softly at the compliment. “I’m not the kind of a monster that heals quickly or has enhanced reflexes, so I had to get _good_ , I had to be smarter than the rest of them or they’d…I had to get smart. Not too smart, not real-people smart, but smart enough. They underestimated me, never expected me to be able to take them down. Every time I put one in the dirt—didn’t happen every time, but often enough—they were so damn surprised.”  
  
 _Them and me both, Sammy,_ Dean thought.    
  
~*~  
  
Sam was floating _high_ , but even before the drugs kicked in, dissolving the pain from the long gashes across his ribs, he’d been feeling surprisingly warm, safe. The _good_ adrenaline burned through him, the fighting high that only came nights when the hunt was hard and easy at the same time, and Dean looked simultaneously so scared and proud as Sam helped him up over the body of another monster that would never hurt anyone again.  
  
Tonight, if he’d been a hair slower, the yeti’s claws would have disemboweled him instead of just leaving marks that would probably fade into all the other scars. Every time, it amazed Sam (and touched him, and made him feel like maybe he was just as good as Dean always said he was) how worked up Dean got over the possibility of one freak killing another, if the other was Sam.  
  
Now he was stretched out on the motel bed, warm and safe and just as happy as he’d ever been as Dean's hands (just as warm and just as safe, cautious yet confident over his already-scarred skin) stitched him back together.  
  
Hunts were good. Drugs were good, and Dean’s hands were good. The only thing that didn’t fit, the only flaw in this happiness, was the still-panicked edge under Dean’s voice as he talked, the tight lines of tension around his eyes as he looked down at Sam’s skin slowly coming back together, blood welling slowly through the gap where before it had been freely flowing, closing up beneath the needle. He was talking on and on, and Sam couldn't follow, not with the dim painless haze in his head, but he understood that Dean was upset, unhappy about Sam being hurt (but not angry _at him_ for getting hurt).  That was just silly.  
  
"Dean," he said softly, soothingly.  "Hey, Dean. It's okay.  It's all okay.  Shit happens, right?  And it’s not our fault.  You told me that."  
  
Dean's mouth twisted a little, amusement fighting through the concern. Maybe Sam had said it funny, because of the drugs, maybe he hadn’t made sense at all and that was what Dean was laughing at. That was okay.  Sam didn't mind how he made Dean happy, not when there were so many other things Dean _wouldn’t_ let him do.  
  
"It's not okay," Dean said at last, quietly, holding Sam's gaze.  "I'm supposed to take care of you.  You're my responsibility.  I did _not_ get you out of that camp just to take you places where you’d get sliced open."  
  
Sam started to laugh.  It was a full body-shaking laugh, helpless mirth, and he could barely feel Dean's hands holding his sides and hear his alarmed voice saying the stitches weren't tied yet, calm down, Sammy, breathe.  He tried, he really did, but it took several moments and long gasps of breath before he could get control.  Then, not sure where the words came from, he said, "Shut up," affectionately, catching Dean's neck with his arm to pull him down, close enough to smell sweat and leather and _Dean_ at the crook of his neck.  
  
"Oof," Dean muttered.  "Hold your horses, Sammy, gotta get this tied off. Damn, who knew Vicodin would turn you into a Sammy-pus.”  
  
“Wha’s a Sammy-pus?” Sam asked, hugging him closer.  
  
“Like an octopus, but with more Sam.” Dean shifted, though he could have easily broken Sam’s hold. “No, seriously, Sam, I’ve got to get this wrapped up, just a minute, I promise.”  
  
Sam reluctantly let him go, but true to his word ( _Dean always kept his word, most reliable thing in Sam's world_ ) Dean returned a moment later to stretch out along Sam's uninjured side.  Sam nuzzled his shoulder. "I like you," he said decisively.  
  
Dean laughed, low, still a little sad but better now.  "Thanks, Sam. I like you too."  
  
"No, I mean it.   _I like you_.  An’ I like you even when you make me drive and brake hard and hit you when we spar and don’t let me do things for you. I like you. And that's important. "  
  
Dean's hands traced the outline of his face, slid down to his back, steady and warm. "Yeah," he said.  "I guess it is."  
  
~*~  
  
It got easier. Everything got easier, really: the hunting, the people, looking over at Dean while he drove with the windows down and smiling without thinking about it, without being afraid. Some days it seemed like he was a real, like Dean, laughing in the face of that wind, saving people and hunting things. And then the truth of the Director’s lessons would wind around Sam’s throat, crawl down his chest, and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t lift his head, could only shake and think how very useless he was here, no matter how many monsters he killed or textbooks he read, because he was a freak.  
  
Until one night, after a hunt for a nasty marsh monster in Louisiana, when they were both drained, battered, Sam exhilarated (the thrill of shoving a stake through the slimy thing’s heart and knowing it would never hurt someone again) and Dean was stumbling, into trees and the side of the Impala, his flashlight and gun held in shaking hands.  
  
They had hunted together, they _always_ hunted together, but Dean had insisted on taking more watches, had told him over and over that Sam could sleep, that he should rest (his voice strained, his eyes dark hollows after looking at one too many pictures of kids with their guts ripped out), and Sam had slept even though his dreams were filled with monsters inside and outside the walls, his eyes opening every hour just to check that Dean was still there, that the pictures hadn’t reached out to devour him yet.  
  
So Sam was rested, relatively, while Dean stood by the driver’s side door, head down, shoulders rising and falling as though even breathing were a struggle.  
  
Sam knew what he had to do, what he should do, what Dean might even have asked him if he had been thinking, though Sam was beginning to understand that Dean would sooner walk naked into a vampires’ nest than admit he was unfit to get behind the wheel of the Impala. Even if he were staring at the Impala’s polished chrome as though he’d never seen its like in his life. Sam took a deep breath—unsteady for a reason beside the hunt they had just finished—and walked around the Impala.  
  
“Dean,” he said. “You can take shotgun.  It’s just a country road, I can get us back to the highway. For practice.”  
  
Dean stared at him for a second. “Yeah,” he said at last. “Yeah, that’s a good idea, Sammy.” He fumbled the keys out of his pocket and almost dropped them handing them over.  Sam was suddenly grateful and almost sick with terror-relief.  If they had crashed with Dean behind the wheel, even if Dean never blamed him for not taking the keys, Sam would have known he might have prevented that. He had come to value even his own life because he knew that it mattered to Dean. He valued himself now, if only because of how much every bruise of _his_ seemed to cause Dean pain.  
  
Imagining Dean hurt, injured, or dead didn’t bear thinking about. So he didn’t. He just nudged Dean gently into the passenger seat and then settled himself, again, behind the wheel.  
  
There, he sat and shook for a while. He wanted to believe it was just the adrenaline, the comedown from the hunt (the latest in a line of hunts, the latest hour when he had felt _good_ ), but he knew that wasn’t it.  
  
In some ways, it would have been easier to drive if he didn’t give a damn about himself, if Dean had been the destination and not the companion. Easier still in the bad old days, when the only thing at stake for a task was pain or no pain. Now it was Dean, Dean’s happy smile, Dean’s sad smile, Dean’s hurt look, Dean’s wild eyes. There were shades and shades of good and bad, success and failure in Sam’s life now, everything an Impressionist painting of colors and emotion where once it had been only black and white, cutting angles and the flat of a blade.  
  
Most of the time, Sam reveled in that difference because Dean made him safe enough to feel, safe enough not to miss the days when only the Rules (and obedience to them) had stood between himself and agony.  
  
Other times, the welter of variables and ramifications, and everything he had to lose, terrified him.  
  
Turning the key in the ignition was like putting a gun to his head and trusting there wasn’t a bullet in the chamber. Harder, even. The engine jumped and purred under his touch like it did for Dean, just like it had for him every time Dean had him practicing stop and go and drive. Sam forced his breathing and his heartbeat to slow. He was okay. They would be okay.  
  
Driving wasn’t hard, except that Sam worried. He worried about the brakes giving out, about animals (or another swamp beast, they had probably gotten them all but you never knew for sure with freaks) running into the road—Dean had said it would just be bad luck if it happened, while Sam personally thought it would be fate—and he worried about all the things he couldn’t imagine reaching out and sending this car, and her cargo, careening off the road and into bottomless chasms or unyielding surfaces.  
  
Dean laughed—though there was that broken edge in his eyes while he did it, as though he too thought about these things—and told Sam he worried too much, that Dean had been driving for a decade with no accidents—sure, he’d _hit_ things, but that had been on purpose—and Sam shouldn’t sweat it.  
  
Sam usually kissed him after that. It was the only thing that could really make the broken look in Dean’s eyes go away after they had one of those conversations. And it made him feel good too, which mattered so much to Dean that it had begun to matter to Sam. He wasn’t being a selfish monster when he wanted Dean’s mouth against his, wanted to lick into his mouth and make him groan, wanted to groan with him. No, at times like that, Sam was just doing the best thing in the world.  
  
Sam found his breathing calmer, his heart slower—or maybe faster in a good way—just from thinking about Dean’s lips against his. Sure, his hands were clenched so hard he was surprised he wasn’t leaving indentations on the wheel, but he could do this. He had done this.  And just because Dean was asleep beside him—trusting Sam enough to _sleep_ while Sam drove his precious Impala through empty backwoods roads—instead of awake with a hand on his shoulder, didn’t make Sam any less capable.  Dean was still there.  
  
Dawn was only minutes away, but he couldn’t see any hints of it through the pounding rain. Those same thick, black storm clouds had dogged them through the entire hunt, had threatened to dump on them a hundred times but had never quite managed. But now the water came down like a sheet, a waterfall, as though the tension of the hunt had been released (or, as Dean would probably joke, the universe was taking a petty vengeance pissing on the Winchesters).  
  
Sam slowed to a crawl, wipers going at top speed, waves curving away from the Impala’s wheels.  
  
He had driven in rain before, but never rain like this, when sometimes the only reason he could see the road was lightning outlining the trees in a jagged electric halo.  
  
Sam, shaking from the adrenaline and the thunder and the fear, would have pulled over in a heartbeat to let the storm pass them by, but there was nowhere he could stop and be sure they wouldn’t sink into the soggy ground or get hit by an unwary driver who couldn’t see the black Impala in the greater blackness of the night.  
  
And Dean was still asleep beside him, limp and exhausted with his mouth slightly lax. Even over the rattle of the rain, Sam could hear his easy, deep breathing.  
  
Sam’s hands ached from their grip, but he could not stop and could not fail. _We must be following the storm,_ he thought.  
  
They had reached better roads—paved and gentler, more visible in the waning dark—before the rain began to slake, and Sam found a gas station at the side of the road and pulled off. The shop and bathrooms were closed—the station was rundown enough that Sam wasn’t positive it was even open—but the battered awning above the pumps offered some shelter.  
  
Sam turned off the Impala and forced himself to breathe, to listen to Dean breathe, and the rain, and massaged the tension out of his hands. He thought how good it was to be alive, to have Dean alive and to have brought them through that mess of wind and rain and lightning with nothing more than a skill: simple, easy, terrifying.  
  
How strange his life had become, to be filled with small triumphs instead of bare survival. To cautiously look forward, every day, to a good day—a day in which he had the power to make decisions that would leave them safer, happier. To live a good day every day. He wondered if it would ever stop surprising him.  
  
The rain was a mere trickle, more a half-hearted splattering than a solid sheet, by the time Dean finally yawned and rubbed his face.  
  
“Where are we, Sammy?”  
  
“Twenty miles from Lafayette,” Sam answered. There had been a sign on the road right before he’d turned into the gas station’s parking lot.  He still remembered these things.  
  
Dean blinked at him. “Damn, weren’t we near Houma before? That’s…” Sam could see Dean trying to do the math in his head and the sleepiness getting in the way. _102 miles, Dean_. “…a heck of a long way.”  
  
Sam had just enough time to have a flash of anxiety (should they not have driven that far? Was there another destination Dean had had in mind?) before Dean scooted across the seat and pulled Sam’s head down for a kiss.  
  
Only an hour past dawn, with no sleep, barely escaped from a storm from hell, and it was already a wonderful day.  
  
When they broke apart for air, Dean was grinning, kind of blurrily, and Sam felt giddy, light.  Then Dean glanced over his shoulder and grinned even wider. “Would you look at that, Sam.”  
  
“What?” Sam twisted around.  
  
Then he didn’t have to ask.  
  
The gas station was in the middle of nowhere, with the bog and trees stretching almost endlessly into the distance. The view splayed out the withdrawing storm, the cliff of cloud moving slowly, darkly into the distance. It was a powerful force, like the monsters they hunted, but clean in a way that monsters could never be. Alone, the retreating storm would have been enough to awe Sam.  
  
But the double rainbows made it beautiful.  
  
One was vividly bright against the dark clouds, jewel tones more pure, more honest than its representation in any television program. Its paler twin arched above it, half-buried, half-consumed by the monstrous storm.  
  
Sam knew, scientifically, that a rainbow was nothing but light refracting off water droplets in the air and splitting into base colors. The same effect could be achieved with a garden hose and a light source or a correctly angled mirror. He’d been fascinated the first time Dean had tilted his compass back and forth beneath bright sunlight, sending a thin strip of color dancing across the Impala’s ceiling.  
  
But this was so much more, the colors and the beauty even more striking, resonating, after the rain and the storm and the worry. It felt like some cosmic award for believing—and doing—what Dean had always said he could.  
  
As though aware of his thoughts, Dean wrapped his arms around Sam, his smile and a day’s worth of stubble rubbing into Sam’s neck where the collar used to be.  
  
“This is a chick-flick moment,” Dean murmured against his throat.  
  
“I noticed,” Sam agreed, leaning back into his arms.  
  
They stayed there, watching the sky, until the last drops of rain fell away, the rainbows faded into sunshine and the gas station door was opened by a gruff, rickety old man who glared at them once and then pumped their gas tank full without a word.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, many thanks to quickreaver for the breathtaking fanart. <3

The phone was ringing when Bobby came in at two a.m., sore and tired from a hunt with a lot more running and hitting the floor than his old bones expected. He thought about just letting the damn thing ring—he hurt too damn much to be any good on another hunt, and if he picked up and it was some idiot drunk-dialing him because he knew some girl named Bobby, he was going to have to shoot someone—but after eight rings, he sighed and picked it up.

"What?"  This was no hour for pleasantries.

"It's for Dean." The voice at the end of the line was tense with barely-controlled panic, high, male. "I swear it's for Dean please don't hang up."

It took a moment for Bobby to make the connection. “Is this...Sam?”

“Yes, yes, please don’t hang up, M-Mr. Singer, it’s for Dean.”

Bobby wasn't sure if his hand had gone numb, or maybe his brain. Sam had never called. Sam had barely spoken when they were in the same room. "Kid, slow down, what's wrong?"

"The fr-freak got him in the leg, and I g-got him wrapped up, but the w-wound is turning purple and spreading and he’s feverish, doesn’t know me, and I think the claws had some kind of p-poison. His eyes are—they were turning blue around the edges and now he won’t open them and I can’t—"

"Sam, calm down." Bobby leaned against the wall. "Do you know what it was?"

"We th-thought it was a wyvren, there had been some classic sightings, but when we got there it looked more like some kind of naga or j-just a big bat and...I don't know, we didn't know, but an iron round took it down. I have the corpse in the back, I didn't know if you'd need it for a cure, if you’d k-know what it was. Couldn’t leave it for the re—c-civilians to find and didn’t have time to burn it."

Even panicked out of his mind, Sam had saved the evidence, cleaned the trail. Bobby was impressed.

"That’s good," he said. "Where are you?"

"F-forty minutes away," Sam gasped. "Less if I can be sure there aren't any cops. Maybe twenty min-minutes. Please be there. You ha-have to help him."

Bobby swallowed, tightening his grip on the phone. "I'll be here. Just get him here safely."

Now that Bobby was listening, he could hear the roar of the Impala in the background, and a low groaning that had to be Dean. Sam’s voice was tight, controlled and desperate. "Always."

Once he hung up, with a fresh surge of adrenaline pounding through him, Bobby considered the likelihood this injury was something Sam had caused, set up, or allowed to happen. But the trick there was why Sam would bring Dean _here_ , if that were the case. Even with his long years of paranoia, Bobby couldn’t make sense of that. He would have to trust the kid, then, but watch his—and Dean’s—back at the same time.

Sam made it in twenty-six minutes. Bobby had expected the Impala to fly into his yard (there was still a dent in his porch from one time _John_ had skidded to a stop with Dean in the backseat) and had made sure the dogs were safely in their kennels both for their safety and for Sam’s sake, but Sam pulled through the junkyard gates slowly, gliding to an easy halt rather than slamming on the brakes. But as soon as the car had come to a stop, Sam bolted out of the driver's side and skidded around the edge of the car, hitting his knee on the Impala’s bumper on the turn. His movements held all the self-careless panic and speed that Bobby had expected in how he handled the car.

Bobby hurried down the steps, careful to stay far enough away from Sam not to get in his way while he worked to get Dean out of the seat—Sam had even put a seatbelt on Dean, a safety feature that Bobby had seen used in the Impala maybe a handful of times.

"I got the couch set up for him," Bobby said. "Figured the trip upstairs would be a nightmare, and he should be close as possible to the kitchen if it's bad. Where'd you put the corpse?"

Sam glanced toward him, not at his eyes, but close, and then focused on getting Dean out of the Impala. "Backseat," he said. Dean moaned when Sam maneuvered his shoulder a little farther out of the door and jostled the arm that he had wrapped tight against his chest. Sam flinched like he had been stuck with a pin. "Shhhh," he said. "We're here, Dean. You're gonna be okay. It's all going to be okay."

Bobby put an arm over the Impala’s roof to shade the window from the glare of the house’s lights, and peered at the creature. He sighed in relief. It was a Rocky Mountain variation on a black quetzalcoatl. Not very common, and its venom could be lethal if left untreated, but mostly it was no worse to deal with than a slow-acting allergic reaction. Hunters died because by the time they started feeling the worst effects (widespread numbness and hallucinations), they weren't in any kind of shape to get themselves to help.

After Sam and Bobby got Dean up the porch stairs and laid out on Bobby’s battered couch—the kid was stronger than he looked, barely panting from bearing half of Dean’s weight—Sam skittered away from Dean’s side while Bobby leaned over the wound. It was an ugly slash in his outer thigh right above the knee—curling purple around the edges and spilling out a fresh flow of blood when Bobby tentatively pulled away the crude bandage he assumed Sam had wrapped around it—but not particularly deep. Bobby figured he’d shoot Dean with a basic yet reliable anti-toxin and antihistamine and then place a poultice to slow the bleeding and draw out the rest of the toxin. He’d stitch the kid back together once he was sure he wouldn’t be locking something nasty inside his body.

The whole situation wasn’t _great_ , but Dean would be fine.

“Is he—” Sam’s quiet, cut-off comment had Bobby’s head snapping up from the wound and one hand reaching for the knife at his belt. He wasn’t sure if momentarily forgetting the kid’s presence was a sign that his instincts felt he could trust the kid, or if the fact that he still reached for a weapon when startled by him meant that Bobby would be foolish to drop his guard quite yet. “Is it b-bad?” Sam finished, hands twisted together.

Bobby blinked into Sam's white, desperate face and realized that he hadn’t _said_ a word out loud of his positive diagnosis, hadn't offered a single word of reassurance. And he had no idea why not. Sure, more than one person had called him a tight-lipped bastard—or maybe that had just been John screaming at him on several occasions—but usually if another hunter walked through the door, they either needed to hear what pumpkin-headed idiots they had been, or had to know that they had done their best. Either way, he gave them that. It was part of being a general resource for the hunter community and still alive at his age. But he hadn't said more than a few terse words to Sam since they'd arrived.

Bobby looked at the kid. He was pale, tense, all his attention focused either on Dean’s ashen face or on Bobby’s hands cutting away Dean’s shredded jeans. But Bobby didn’t see just a young, inexperienced hunter, confronted maybe for the first time with the real possibility of death coming to someone that he loved. He saw a kid tied down in a blank white room, waiting for the pain.

Maybe some part of him still saw the kid as a threat, something that could turn around and bite Dean hard in the ass because Dean wasn’t going to be watching his back as sharp with someone he was clearly head over heels for. But most of Bobby just had a hard time looking the kid in the eye when every time he saw his still-too-thin face, it reminded him of the kind of monster _he_ was, that he could see a kid getting tortured in front of him and just walk away.

That ended now. That ended right now, or his name wasn’t Singer.

"He'll be fine, Sam," Bobby said. "I've got all the stuff I need. We’ll hit him with the basic antibiotics and something to cut the swelling, a wrap to draw out the poison, and hopefully by dawn we’ll be stitching him up. You stay with him, let me get the poultice started. By tonight he’ll be fine, or at least as fine as a slash that big would let him be normally."

Sam looked down, his body sagging with relief. Bobby hadn't realized how tightly-wound Sam had been until he relaxed. Maybe Sam had never actually been relaxed around him. Something to think about, but not before they’d gotten something on the idjit’s wound to make sure he didn’t bleed to death or go into anaphylactic shock.

Bobby went to the kitchen, where he kept the herbs he cooked with and the herbs he worked supernatural cures with—more overlap than you’d think: it was amazing the things a man could do with garlic and a little caraway—and started putting together an anti-toxin. Halfway through, he grabbed one of the more versatile grimoires (if you substituted “chicken” for “sucklyng dragyn,” it had a damn fine fried wings recipe) to check the ingredients ratio. He fried it into a stinking, soggy mess, drained the liquid off, and then packed it into a poultice.

When he came out, he caught only the tail end of Sam's abrupt movement away from the couch. He had probably been sitting wedged in there some way that wouldn’t cause Dean pain, but by the time Bobby had cleared the doorway, Sam was standing about a foot away from the couch, watching Bobby without ever meeting his eyes.

Bobby dragged one of his lighter chairs one-handed to Dean’s side and pressed the compress onto the wound, hard. It must have hurt like some kind of bitch, but Dean did nothing more than groan and toss a little. That, more than anything, brought home how very close a save it had been, how Dean wasn’t in much danger of dying _now_ , but without the kid, he would have been pretty much screwed. Bobby lifted the compress every few minutes, checking to make sure that the poison was drawing out, leaving a luminous purple smear soaking into the compress. When Dean's fever dropped after what seemed like ages but had probably only been a couple hours, Bobby put the compress aside (now stained with more blood than toxin). He rubbed the edges of the slash with a local anesthetic, popped open a sterile, pre-threaded needle, and then slid the needle into Dean's skin.

Even though the pain had to be mostly dull, Dean moaned and twitched while Bobby laid a neat line of stitches between the two ragged edges of skin. Once or twice, Bobby thought he caught Dean muttering _Sammy, where's Sam_. When Dean’s movements got jerky enough to make Bobby worry about the stitching, he replied, _he's safe, fine, now hold still, idjit, while I sew you up_.

When Bobby was done, he looked up, but Sam wasn't hovering worriedly next to the couch. Surprised, and blinking from fatigue and the change of focus, Bobby had to make two visual sweeps of the room before he was completely sure the kid wasn’t in sight.

"Sam?"  He glanced toward the kitchen, then noticed a light shining from the bathroom. Bobby pulled himself unsteadily to his feet—it had been a damn long day—and moved cautiously toward the partially open door. "Kid?"  He didn’t want to intrude, but as fucked up as Sam’s upbringing had been, Bobby figured Sam wouldn't have left the door open if he just had to do his business. When Bobby didn’t hear a response, he pushed the door the rest of the way open.

Sam’s bloodstained overshirt was folded neatly on top of the closed toilet seat, while the kid leaned against the bathroom counter, holding his left arm over the sink. The jagged slash across his forearm was too big for the neat line of butterfly bandages barely holding it together. The amount of blood covering the kid’s shirt (why hadn’t he noticed before? Had he just assumed it was all Dean’s, that Sam cowered behind him during hunts and got away without a scratch?) was enough to give Bobby one of those angry and unpleasant fear-based adrenaline shots.

"The hell, Sam?"

Sam started, almost dropping the needle in his other hand. Not that it would have mattered much, with one end of the suture already sewn through his skin. Bobby took a step inside, and Sam flinched and dropped his eyes, his left fist clenching and straining the bandages.

"Sorry," Sam said, eyes darting to his shirt on the toilet, the blood streaking down into the sink. "I'll c-clean it up when I’m done, when I know I’m not g-going to make more of a mess."  

"I don’t care about the decor, kid, why didn't you say something?"  He motioned toward the bloody arm and the awkward angle. “You could have held down the compress while I stitched that up.”

Sam's eyes flickered nervously in Bobby’s direction, and then back down to his wound. "It's not that b-bad. I staunched it so I wouldn't get dizzy on the drive. It’s almost stopped bleeding anyway."  He looked down at the needle in his hand with a sudden flare of worry. "I'm sorry I took your supplies, I'll replace them from our kit once you’re done with Dean. It's just—" Sam swallowed, and continued carefully, as though he were reciting a chant in an unfamiliar language. "It's important to Dean that I take care of my injuries right away because blood loss and infection are a serious long-term risk reducing both our chances of survival."

Bobby put a hand against the door frame, wondering wearily how Dean did it. Bobby didn’t think he could deal with that kind of painstaking precision every day, not when he felt stuck in the doorway, no right to move closer, and an essential resistance in him to the idea of running away, leaving that kid to his pain. Not this time. Not even when Sam would only let one person help sew up his skin. "Need a hand with anything?

Sam shook his head, already leaning back over the sink. "It's fine. Please just make sure Dean's okay."

Bobby left, though it wasn't to watch Dean rest. Unless that idjit rolled off the couch, there wasn’t a lot more Bobby could help with. He returned to the bathroom a moment later when he realized what Sam was missing.

Sam stared at the pills and glass of water uncomprehendingly, until Bobby said gently, "They’re just painkillers, kid."

Sam shook his head. “No, thank you. It doesn’t hurt that m-much. If you c-could step out, p-please, I’ll only b-be a—” Sam paused to take a careful, almost pained breath, eyes focused on the corner of the bathroom next to Bobby. “I’ll only be a minute.”

“Oh, sure thing,” Bobby said, and ducked out hastily, pills still in hand. He left the water glass behind, though.

When Sam came out, carrying his overshirt and the supplies in his good arm while keeping the other crooked close to his chest. Bobby did his best not to look at him, figuring any kind of attention wasn’t what the kid wanted right now. Sam settled himself on the floor next to the couch and rested one hand lightly on Dean's wrist, curling his fingers over his pulse as though Dean’s skin was as thin as cigarette paper.

Even drugged out and recovering from Bobby’s patch-up job, Dean twitched, twisted his hand around until his fingers could grab feebly at Sam’s, and murmured his name. Bobby knew he hadn't been meant to see the smile that flickered over Sam's face.

"You want to crash in the spare bedroom, Sam?" Bobby asked, when watching them curl their hands together became too uncomfortable. "It's all set. I get folks coming in here wounded all the time. You can catch a couple hours’ sleep, check on him when you need to."

Sam glanced up at him, and then back down. "Can I..." he started, stopped, took a breath. "Would it be t-too m-much trouble for me to st-stay here?  I w-won't block your way if you n-need to take care of the wound again o-or anything."

Bobby was pretty sure that if he needed to change the poultice or the stitches, Sam would bolt away as fast as he could. "No, that's fine, kid, you won’t be in my way. I’ll bring some blankets down at least, don’t want you creaking around like me with my back. "

Bobby went upstairs and raided the faintly mothball-scented linen closet. Dammit, if Sam was going to sleep on the floor, injured— _to be close to Dean—_ then the least Bobby could do was get him enough padding to be comfortable.

He brought down a sheet, a couple quilts and pillows, and a sleeping bag. Sam's eyes widened, and then when Bobby told him to move himself, he jumped up and stood behind the couch, one hand touching Dean’s shoulder, until Bobby crouched painfully and started laying the bedding over the floor where he had been. Then Sam came around and helped, always careful to keep a few inches of space between them. In no time they had the sleeping bag, the sheet, and then the quilts laid out in a nice nest right next to Dean, whom Sam had covered with one of the blankets.

"You need anything else, Sam?" Bobby asked. He had realized, somewhere along the way, that he didn't use Sam's name much. He tended to even think of him as “the kid” or “poor sonuvabitch,” because that’s what he would be in Bobby’s head as long as he remembered that day he’d walked away from that wretched kid in the interrogation room. But the kid had a name, and that was pretty damn important, and something he should make an effort to remember.

Sam shook his head. "No, I'm fine. Thank you, M-Mr. Singer."

Bobby nodded. "Okay. Call me if you need anything, or if Dean does." Sam was nodding again, turning back to Dean like a magnet inexorably to north, when Bobby reached out, slowly, and touched him on the arm. Sam froze, seeming not even to breathe. "I mean it, Sam. If you need _anything_ , you let me know, got it? And call me Bobby, like everyone else does. I just feel old when you call me Mr. Singer."

Sam nodded. "Yes, s—Bobby. Got it. I will."

Bobby walked heavily up the stairs, his bones aching, dawn long gone and morning far enough along that the birds had given up singing in the daily business of worm hunting.

Sam was okay. It had taken Bobby a hell of a long time to believe that the boy meant no harm toward either Dean or himself, and secondly that he wasn’t about to unintentionally combust the kitchen appliances, but he figured he was going to sleep just fine, without worrying about what might happen in the living room.

~*~

That afternoon, after catching a few hours of shut-eye, Bobby came downstairs quietly. The boys were asleep, Dean curled half on his stomach on the sofa, Sam huddled on his sleeping bag, one hand propped up against the couch. Dean had stretched down his hand to clasp Sam's. The sight sent an odd ache through Bobby's chest.

He didn't want to disturb them, but there was no way around to the kitchen without passing through the living room, not unless he wanted to slip through the lower-level window and circle around the house. Bobby kept his footsteps even and unhurried (he could be as quiet as the rest of them, but the real trick to not startling sleeping hunters and ending up with a face full of buckshot, was walking _unconcerned)_ ,but his eyes stayed on their linked hands. Such a simple thing, and not something that he would have imagined those boys feeling comfortable doing in his house even a month ago.

He was just about to turn away to start making himself some breakfast when something caught his eye. An irregularity, some kind of pattern or design on Sam's inner forearm. On any other kid, Bobby’d figure it for a basic tattoo, but in his line of work, you didn't screw around with ritualistic body markings. There was too much power in symbols and runes for people in the business to mark themselves up in ways that could call evil _to_ themselves instead of driving it away. And for Sam to have been allowed some kind of marking like that in camp...

Come to think of it, he'd never seen Sam in short sleeves. And it had been _hot_ last time they’d visited, none of this Halloween chill in the air, and the kid had not once taken off his shirt or rolled up his sleeves. Curious—even if he knew as damn well as anybody what happened to the curious who investigated bumps in the night—he bent over to examine the mark more closely.

Nothing particularly significant about it; just a smiley face, a little larger than a silver dollar, made by an irregular series of dotted scar tissue against his pale skin. Burn scars.

Bobby jerked back, bile rising in his throat. He swallowed convulsively. There was no reason he should be surprised—he'd been in the fucking room, seen firsthand what they were doing to him.

But recalling an indistinct, half-repressed memory and seeing the evidence before him were two completely different socks in the gut.

Bobby forced himself to breathe, forced himself to stay quiet and back away back to the kitchen. Waking the boys up wouldn’t change anything, wouldn’t wipe those scars off of Sam’s forearm or take away the nightmares that no doubt plagued him most nights.

So like the old man coward he was, he went to the kitchen, broke a couple of eggs harder than he had to, and sliced enough potatoes for all of them (because Dean not waking up wasn’t an option, and he could understand now Dean’s urge to feed the kid all the time; those bones under his skin were far too sharp even after several months of eating what Bobby could only assume had been hamburgers and fries).

Sam woke up while he was frying the potatoes. He lifted his head from the nest of pillows and blankets, and Bobby could see the flying wisps of his hair from where they’d been pressed into the couch. “Mister—Bobby? C-can I help with anything?”

“You can help me eat some of this,” Bobby said.

Sam glanced at Dean and then back up. “I’m not—”

“You can bring it back down by Dean if you want.” Bobby shrugged, feeling like he were working with a startled dog (dammit no this was a _kid_ , even one who’d been beaten like a dog, didn’t change that he was a _kid_ ), trying to keep all his movements easy and non-threatening. “I don’t mind you sitting by the couch. But you should keep up your strength.”

Sam nodded, as though he’d heard that before, came in to pick up his plate and fork with a quiet thank-you, and took his seat again in the living room. Bobby ate in the kitchen, put away what he’d made for Dean, and then went to his desk to do a little paperwork. Not that he kept very many _records,_ but he still had to do his taxes like anyone, and it was better to keep up with the paperwork than get knifed by it in April.

Dean woke groggily as the sun was sinking, half thrashing on the couch before that jostled his ribs and he groaned.

Sam was up on his knees right away, touching Dean’s shoulder, reaching for his hand. “Dean, you’re okay, you’re safe. I got you to B-Bobby’s.”

Dean’s hand groped out, clasped the hand Sam offered him. "Sammy?  You okay?"

The smile on Sam’s face was small and sweet, and vulnerable enough that Bobby had to move back toward the kitchen, both to give them a little more space and so he had a good reason to look away. "I'm fine, Dean."

"You sure?  I coulda sworn that sonuvabitch got you."

"Not bad," Sam said softly. "I took care of it."

“Took care of it, Sam, you gotta—”

“Dean, it’s fine.” Sam reached over and pushed his sleeve up. Bobby wasn’t close enough to see the marks, but he assumed Sam was showing off the stitching. “Really, it’s not that bad.”

Dean traced the stitches with one finger and then, closing his eyes, clumsily patted Sam's shoulder. "Good boy."

Dean couldn’t have seen it, his tone indicating that he was seconds away from falling back asleep, but Bobby saw Sam’s flinch, the way he had to blink several times before taking in a breath and blowing it out. Bobby, watching, had to count slowly to twenty before he could relax his own grip on the kitchen faucet. They were in one hell of a better place from the last time he saw them, and Dean was still more out of it than in, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t up to a chat about his word choice when he could keep his eyes open for more than a few minutes at a time. Not to mention a talk about how they’d been working a hunt practically in Bobby’s backyard, for a monster they couldn’t even ID, and never had the brains to call him for backup.

The rest of the night progressed pretty much the same as the afternoon had. Dean moved in and out of consciousness, Bobby checked the dressings twice just to make sure that the damn wound wasn’t getting infected again, and Sam never left Dean’s side longer than it took to go to the bathroom or go to the Impala to get his backpack.

When that last thing happened, Bobby figured Sam would go for a shower, or change, or start polishing a rifle the way Winchesters tended to when they didn’t have much to do beside keep vigil at somebody’s sickbed, but the pack remained closed even when Bobby went out back to feed the dogs and give himself a little breathing room.

When he returned to the living room, mud all over his pants from Buster’s enthusiastic greeting, Sam was sitting cross-legged on the floor, the backpack half-open beside him, a large textbook spread over the hardwood floor, and a notebook balanced on his knee.

Bobby paused in the doorway, curious but mindful of the carefully maintained space between them. Sam had tensed ever so slightly at his entrance, though he hadn’t raised his head or shown any other signs of acknowledgement. It wouldn’t have been noticeable, if Bobby hadn’t been watching for it. Balls, what a pussyfooting pair they made. Though that didn’t mean he was going any closer without a good reason.

He squinted at the textbook’s pages from where he stood. “That algebra you got there?”

Sam spread his hand flat over the glossy page, then rubbed out a spot that didn’t exist. He didn’t look up, speaking intently toward the pages of his book. “Dean—Dean got it for me, s-so I can l-learn. So, so I know what... It h-helps, too, for hunts and just, every day, so pe-people don’t n-notice as much that I’m... and for Dean—if I know more—”

“That’s a great idea,” Bobby cut in. “Particularly if you like numbers and things. Dean could never sit still for it. Kid’s lucky if he can figure a ten percent tip.”

Sam’s shoulders relaxed just a fraction, and he peeked up through his bangs, showing barely a glimpse of his eyes. “It’s useful,” he said softly, “but—I do like it.”  His gaze dropped again, hand moving restlessly across the page.

Bobby had to clear his throat when the silence stretched, not sure if they’d actually stopped talking about something or if the night had moved on without them. “Hey, I’m going to hit the hay. You staying down here again?”

Sam nodded down at the book, then looked up. “Do you m-mind if I stay u-up a bit? I’m not...” He gestured slightly toward the book in his lap, though whether that meant _in the middle of a chapter_ or _not wearing any pants_ , Bobby would have been hard pressed to guess cold.

“Nah, that’s no problem. A light on down here won’t bother me upstairs.” He turned to go, but paused at the last moment. “He’s gonna be okay, you know that, right, Sam?” Bobby hoped the kid didn’t notice the hesitation before his name. He sure as hell did. “Dean’ll be okay.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Yeah, well, least I could do.” Bobby hesitated for another moment, and then knocked his hand against the door frame just lightly, combined courage and anger at himself in the motion. It may have been (but probably wasn’t) his imagination that Sam jumped. “Goodnight, Sam.”

Sam took a deep, careful breath. “Goodnight...Bobby.”

That success probably shouldn’t have also felt like a reproach.

~*~

Sam knew that injuries took time to heal. He had had enough experience with them to understand that, even though most injuries he got hunting with Dean weren’t that bad, and even thinking about _recovering_ after damage had been an impossible luxury in Freak Camp. But it was different, somehow, when it was Dean laid out over that couch, some discolored fluid seeping out of his leg and Sam incapable of stopping that, of fixing him.

Probably he would have been more terrified of Hunter Si—Bobby that first day if he hadn’t been so terrified each time Dean took a slightly more labored breath or groaned from the pain of his wound. But as it was, he simply hadn’t had the time to care about himself when Dean had been unconscious and incapable of taking care of himself.

Of course there had been bad spots. When Hu—Bobby had walked in on him in the bathroom, Sam had felt that his hand would shake enough to pull out the stitches he’d already put in place, and before he’d found the courage to bring out his books (the precious texts Dean had bought him, which every day made him feel like he knew more what was going on with reals, what they were used to and what they’d expect from him if he was going to pass as one of them), he’d had to go through every reason Dean had ever given him for why it was okay for him to be studying, why he thought it was a good idea.

Even though Bobby had never asked him why he was studying, why he was putting his freak hands all over the pages that were for reals’ education, Sam still found it easier to breathe and focus knowing he had all those lines prepared in his head in case he had to recite it, clear and concise as the Dir—as _Dean_ would want him to.

And it had been okay, while Dean was unconscious. But it was better, now that Dean had managed to make his way to the upstairs guest room to sleep through a night with his arm wrapped around Sam’s shoulders, now that he was awake most of the time and laughing, trying to get Sam to give him the Impala’s keys.

“C’mon, Sammy. I don’t even feel it.” Dean leaned over and bumped shoulders with Sam, who felt the pain radiate through his injured arm, but the contact wasn’t nearly enough to pop the stitches, so he ignored it. He was finally sitting on the couch, after Dean had practically dragged him onto it with Bobby’s tacit approval, and Sam was just enjoying the closeness, the reassurance, finally, that Dean was going to be all right.

“That’s because of the pills, Dean.”

“How do _you_ know?  Could be that I’m all better. How’re we gonna know unless—“

“Bobby said _no_ , Dean.”

Dean beamed at him, and Sam felt proud under the tension he always felt when he _argued_ , even with Dean. He hadn’t even stuttered on Bobby’s name that time. “Bobby said no,” he repeated, “and he’s got a lot more e-experience than us, and he’s helping take care of us, so I think we o-ought to listen to him.” Sam reached out and shoved Dean’s shoulder—not hard, barely a brush of his fingertips, not even enough to leave an imprint in his shirt, but Dean rocked back laughing just the same and clumsily grabbed for Sam’s fingers. “And you should li-listen to me, because you’re on pain m-m-medication and I’m not.”  

Okay, he was stuttering more than he had on their recent hunts, but on the whole, he had felt none of the clawing fear that had infused every second of their last visit here. They had already been at Bobby’s for longer than the last visit, and Sam hadn’t had one panic attack. Although he had bumped Dean’s fractured ribs while recoiling from a nightmare last night, and then ended up _crying_ over Dean’s white-lipped attempt to soothe him through the pain that he had caused, but. That could have happened anywhere. Not just in this house, with a hunter under the same roof, someone who could hurt Sam without a single recrimination—but _wouldn’t_ , Sam had to remember that, and it was getting easier every time Bobby carefully kept his distance when he came into the room. The important thing was that they were still at Bobby’s on their third day, and here he was on the couch arguing with Dean, knowing that Bobby could hear every word from his desk in the study and yet _not_ terrified he was about to be beaten for the form of disrespect Dean expected, encouraged, and smiled for.

Maybe someday the possibility wouldn’t even linger in the back of his mind.

“Yeah, what’s up with that,” Dean muttered. “I dunno where you learned that whole stoic-Winchester, too-hardass-for-oxy act, or maybe you picked up a flask on the sly—”

“I did _not_ ,” Sam protested, though he knew Dean was winding him up.

“—but it’s just bullshit. You got six stitches in you, you’re telling me they don’t twinge?” Then Dean brightened. “Hey, that’s right, you’re not on the good stuff—you can drive us!  See, I knew I was a genius for teaching you to drive.”

“I am _not_ driving you into town for an ice cream and beer run,” Sam said flatly. “Bobby bought groceries yesterday, we have everything we need, including beer, which you are _not_ allowed to drink yet. You don’t need to end up ripping your stitches and damaging your ribs more than they already are. If you lean too hard against the Impala or overextend yourself in the g-grocery store, it’ll put you back a whole day. We’ll get ice cream and beer when we’re _ready_ , to _celebrate_.”

Bobby’s voice rumbled from the study. “At least one of you knuckleheads got some sense.”

Sam flushed and dropped his eyes, even though Dean’s face (what Sam could see of it from the corner of his vision) was amused and at ease. Fuck this. Fuck this fear. Dean reached one hand down to squeeze Sam’s foot.

“Yeah,” he said, maybe a little louder than necessary, and Sam felt grateful again, as he so often did beneath the anger at himself, “that’s a real nice idea, ‘cept there won’t be much to celebrate if I end up croaking from boredom.” Dean twirled the pill bottle from the end table, grinning up at Sam. “Come _on_ , Sammy, I’m gonna fuse into the couch cushions here. If you’re so set on cooping us up like a couple of fuzzy chickens, you ain’t got a reason _not_ to take your meds, right? And don’t tell me that your arm doesn’t hurt like a bitch. I’m high, not blind.”

"I didn't say anything because it’s healing,” Sam said, with dignity. “And it _doesn’t_ hurt because I don’t overwork it. Maybe if you tried that your knees wouldn’t be in such bad shape.”

“Well, looks like I’m gonna have to give it a try now, what with Nurse Sammy on my case.” The words may have been chiding, but Dean’s tone was teasing, and Sam knew that the more he ‘sassed,’ the less Dean would think about the pain in his side and leg.

So Sam sighed theatrically and snapped the biology textbook in his lap closed. “Okay. Since I’m mean enough to deprive you of ten miles of rough road, the least I can do is find something else for you to do. I could read to you?  Or we can watch a movie or something.”

Dean grinned, easing back down into the couch. “Nah, we’ve about burned out Bobby’s DVD player. I’ll let you have some book-time.”

“So generous,” Sam drawled, even though he was. Dean always was. He pulled _The Outsiders_ from his backpack, rested his back against  the opposite end of the couch with his legs carefully stretched alongside Dean’s, the book arranged so that he could rest it on his bad arm and still turn the pages. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to start with the intro...”

~*~

That night, while Dean was in the bathroom, Sam spent a few minutes arranging the extra pillows he had gotten from the cupboard Bobby had shown him earlier. When Dean emerged, rubbing absently at his leg above his wound, he snorted in amusement when he saw the careful line of pillows down the center of the bed.

“You got an urge to make a pillow fort?”

Sam paused, searching his memory for the phrase, then looked questioningly at Dean.

“It’s just a game kids play—building, uh, houses and stuff out of pillows.”  Dean approached slowly, studying the barricade of pillows. He was also, Sam knew, putting off the moment he’d have to carefully and painfully go from vertical to horizontal. “I’ll give it a shot if you want, Sam, but I gotta say you’re the one always telling me to take care of my banged-up ribs.”

“No,” Sam said, and gave the final pillow a pat. “This isn’t a children’s game, it’s just—a little extra protection. In case I have another nightmare.”

“Oh.” Dean scratched his jaw. “Dude, it’s a nice thought, but that’s not gonna work.”

Sam drooped, looking at his construction. He could admit that the pillows hadn’t been a great idea, but it had been the best solution he could think of—other than him sleeping elsewhere. He had to squash the worry that he was selfish for not choosing or suggesting that option. He knew Dean wouldn’t like that any more than he did; it wasn’t just his vicious monster jealousy.

As always, Dean read him as easily as Sam read his books. “See, you may be okay with the cloud cover, but there’s no way I’ll get much rest with you out of reach.”  Dean sat gingerly on the bed, his face tightening into a grimace for a half-second, and Sam bit his lip in sympathy.

“We could—just try one?”  Sam removed most of the pillows, stacking them on the chair on his side of the bed and leaving one long pillow down the middle.

“If it’ll make you feel better.” Dean leaned against the headboard. “Just don’t be surprised if I toss it to the floor in the middle of the night. C’mere, Sam.”

Sam moved closer, over the pillow median, legs curled up under him. Dean’s fingers touched his hairline, moving over the curve of his cheek, to stroke a thumb under Sam’s chin. Sam leaned into the touch, eyes half-closing.

“I’m gonna risk your elbows, ‘cause it’s worth it to me. I’d put up with a hell of a lot more pain than that to have you near me. You know that, right?” Dean’s voice was low, with a barely-discernible huskiness to it that Sam could never miss. He felt a shiver run down his spine, and leaned closer. “Couldn’t stop thinking about touching you all afternoon, ‘specially when you were reading to me. Drove me crazy, stuck out there on Bobby’s couch.”

Sam’s breath caught, and he lifted one hand to rest on Dean’s shoulder. Even feeling that much of Dean’s muscle and skin beneath his hand, through his shirt—that was enough to make Sam shiver, his heart pump harder, enough touch for the rest of the night if that was all that Dean would give him.

That wasn’t all, though, that Dean would give him. It never was. Sam raised his eyes to meet Dean’s, just as Dean tipped Sam’s chin up for a kiss.

Some things in the real world got easier, requiring less thought and preparation (thumbing through a menu, flicking through channels on the TV, turning the key in the Impala, smiling at witnesses without letting the fear, the reality of _other_ onto his face), leaving him less breathless, terrified, exhilarated, overwhelmed. Kissing Dean was _never_ one of those things.

If anything, kissing was a fire that burned brighter each time, like between them Sam and Dean had a store of gasoline just waiting in their bones for the spark. Now Sam knew Dean’s body like breathing, knew how his lips parted when he wanted Sam to press harder, knew the feel of Dean’s hand against the small of his back pulling him close, knew how Dean groaned when he slid his hand behind Dean’s neck and held them tight together. He had learned not just to open to Dean, to burn, but maybe even in his monster heart believe he had a _right_ to this, to make Dean lean into his touch like Sam’s hands were a fire too, that he could swipe his tongue into Dean’s mouth once, twice, pulling back quick to tease and hear Dean moan in frustration. He knew the rhythm of how they pulled each other close, breaking apart only to hiss each other’s names before falling together again.

He used to be afraid of this. The lessons of freaks that had gotten too close to reals were burned into his brain, his skin. It had been too much, too fast, too _scary_ at first, and Dean had always broken off the kiss when Sam hesitated or began to panic, because Dean was perfect about the things Sam couldn’t say.

Even though now Sam knew Dean wasn’t perfect about _everything_ the way Sam had once believed. Dean wasn’t always great at following sound medical advice, even though he never failed to make sure Sam was “better safe than sorry.”  Sometimes he drank until he couldn’t walk straight through a room without hitting a bed, much less watch out for himself in a bar. And as good as he was at hunting (one of the best, no one could deny it), he wasn’t as good at research or interviewing. He demanded when he should have coaxed, kicked down the door when he should have waited. He couldn’t always sit still long enough to hear out a witness when Sam could tell she could be coaxed into telling them what she had seen, if someone could be patient enough to wait out her fear. But even if Dean was not perfect, that was okay, because now he had Sam to help him, and Sam was learning, with every kiss, that someone could be perfect and not always do everything right.

Except Sam could not let this be the second night he hurt Dean, so he pulled away with a whimper of regret. “Dean, your ribs.”

“Fuck ‘em,” Dean growled. “They’ll still be there in the morning. I’ve got my priorities, okay. So just—get back here—”

Probably Sam should have said no. Dean was still healing, and Dean was _stupid_ sometimes when it came to his own health (though never Sam’s). But there was that selfish piece of Sam, always, that just _wanted_ , and when Dean wanted him back, he couldn’t say no. He didn’t forget about Dean’s injuries (couldn’t, he could see them with his eyes closed, had had nightmares last night partially about those gaping wounds and Dean’s head lolling sideways while the poison wormed through his veins), so his hands explored sure and firm everywhere safe from harm, running over Dean’s arms and chest, then—more from instinct than conscious decision—he curled his fingers to lightly scratch his nails over Dean’s chest, just above his nipples.

Dean broke from Sam’s mouth with a gasp, his head falling against the headboard with a low thunk. “ _Fuck_ , Sam —” and Sam knew he had to do it again.

And he had to be closer, closer, none of this was enough. Yet he couldn’t press against Dean completely, but Dean’s thighs were still available, Sam couldn’t hurt those, so he shifted to cross one leg over to straddle him—

In that instant, when the ache in his groin rippled up his spine and made him gasp, he realized what was wrong.

 _Dirty, dirty monster, nasty little freak-slut_. Wrong and sick and fuck fuck fuck. “No!”

Sam threw himself off Dean, scrambling away, curled around his gut so Dean wouldn’t see, so Dean wouldn’t _know._

“Sam—” Dean sounded bewildered, dazed, but Sam couldn’t answer. He had pulled out of reach, to the edge of the bed, both hands pressed to his gut because he dared not move them lower. _No, no, no, no_. His body could not be doing this to him, this could not happen, Dean would never, _should_ never forgive him, and especially not in Bobby’s house.

“Fuck.”  Dean exhaled, reached for him, winced at the motion, and then tried again, one hand held out coaxingly, voice strained, though Sam could barely understand the words through the pounding in his skull. “Sam, man. What the hell happened, I didn’t mean—look, can you—Sammy, please look at me—”

Sam couldn’t. He couldn’t move, he didn’t dare, because Dean didn’t seem to know, and if Sam looked up he might know; he might see the foul monster thoughts written large over Sam’s face and then _never again_ , and Sam was too much of a selfish freak to give up everything with one ill-advised look.

After a minute (maybe more, it was hard to tell with fear shaking him, the panic that Dean would touch him before he had gotten himself under control, that Dean would know what disgusting freak thing his body had done), Dean got up painfully and went back to the bathroom. Shakily, Sam stood and slipped beneath the sheet, curling around himself to wait. When Dean came back out, he just stopped by the bed for a minute, making no move toward his half.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said into the bed. He hoped Dean could hear him. He felt utterly sick with himself. That had been one of the best experiences of his life, and he wasn’t sure how he could let himself get that close again, wasn’t sure how he could stop it from going _wrong_.

In the camp, it hadn’t been a problem. This had never happened when he watched monsters blowing guards, or guards fuck monsters. The few times anything close had happened with his body (late at night in his cot, usually after a day Dean had visited and touched his face or back, so gentle and soft), it had been easy to will it away thinking about punishment, or Head Alley or Wednesdays. Easy enough to stop it when he was in pain, when he could dig his fingers into a bruise. But he couldn’t see how he could be in pain while he was with Dean, and he didn’t know how he could think about things like that while Dean was kissing him, and he knew that if he couldn’t prevent it, if he couldn’t _force_ himself to stop it, then he couldn’t let himself kiss Dean ever again. Both options were utterly, sickeningly unthinkable.

Dean eased himself down. Sam felt a pang, wondering if he’d hurt Dean again by throwing himself off, if once again Dean was in pain because Sam was just a stupid monster that wanted what it shouldn’t. Dean exhaled, blinking and watching the ceiling for a while. Finally he turned his head. He looked so _sad_ that Sam just wanted to burrow his head into the blankets and never see again. “Hey, Sam, don’t worry about it.” Dean shifted himself, and then, very cautiously, touched Sam’s shoulder for the briefest of moments. Sam clamped down on the desire to follow after the quickly withdrawn touch. “Probably got a little heavy for Bobby’s guest room. Sorry.”

Sam made a noise he hoped Dean would take for agreement, and kept his head down and both his arms wrapped tight around the pillow he had laid between them.

~*~

The creak of a door, accompanied by soft footsteps, woke Dean; not instantly, but with the sort of slow-engine turnover that made it a real challenge to open his eyes more than halfway. It was good, waking up like that, because it meant he was somewhere instinct said he didn’t need to worry about who might come in, didn’t have to keep one hand on his knife and his other arm around his kid. Speaking of that, where _was_ his kid?

That question was enough to get his eyes all the way open, but only to be answered by Sam, standing right in front of him, like the sweetest of fantasies (the G-rated ones, anyway), with a mug of coffee and a plate of something that smelled _delicious_.

Sam smiled at him, then set the mug and plate—of toast and jam with two pills on the side—on the bedside table. He looked good, happy and healthy, and Dean couldn’t get the nagging worry out of his head as to why Sam was up and getting breakfast already, and why the place beside Dean on the bed was empty except for a forlorn not-Sam pillow pushed down by his knees, when most mornings when they didn’t have to get going, Sam was all arms and nuzzles, tangling their legs together and only getting up with visible reluctance. But before Dean could say a word, Sam leaned over and kissed him quickly on the forehead, before turning and vanishing out the door.

For half a minute, Dean didn’t move at all. That was not how this particular G-rated fantasy usually played out. The kiss was sweet, of course, like every time Sam touched his lips to him—though Dean couldn’t remember Sam kissing him on the _forehead_ before, and would have generally preferred the cheek if Sam really wasn’t okay going for his mouth—but this whole thing with Sam not saying so much as good morning, not asking about Dean’s ribs, and not sitting down on the bed with him as Dean ate and gulped his coffee and pills—no, no, that was really fucking not all right. It felt out-of-joint, _off_ , like a shoulder on the edge of the socket, or like a nightmare where he couldn’t put his baby’s engine back together, no matter how hard he fiddled around with the pieces.

What the _hell_ had happened last—

Oh.

The pillow gave it away, a silent accuser. Sam wasn’t cuddling up to him because Sam hadn’t _stayed_ in his arms last night, because Dean got so fucked-up under the happy pills that he forgot _all_ rules and boundaries. When he was sober, he could remember not to scare his kid or push past his comfort zone. Fuck it, when he was _drunk_ he could catch a fucking _clue_ that Sammy maybe didn’t want Dean feeling him up when he’d put a big ol’ pile of pillows between them. But when he was high, every single damn thing he knew went out the window. God _damn_ it, Sam shouldn’t be _around_ him, shouldn’t have to put up with that shit when Dean went into horndog mode without an ounce of control.

Everything considered, he was damn lucky to see his kid at all this morning, that Sam still brought him breakfast in bed and was the sweetest, kindest person he’d ever met. Dean really shouldn’t expect Sam to stick around to sit by him, after last night.

By the time he’d dragged himself and his busted ribs into a sitting position, the coffee was lukewarm, so he drained it in a few swallows while he chowed down on the toast. He wasn’t hungry, not really, not with his gut roiling in the combination of pain meds and shame, but Sam had made it for him (well, he guessed Bobby could have, but Sam had delivered it and Dean really really hoped Sam didn’t feel obligated to bring him fucking meals) and fuck him if he was going to be ungrateful. As he ate, he weighed his options.

Any apology he made wouldn’t do it justice. He’d fucked up, he’d been high, he’d pushed and he fucking hated himself for it _again_ (fuck, this felt like a few months ago, just another day of Sam jerking away from him in fear and he’d thought they were fucking _done_ with that, more fool him). Nothing he said could— _should—_ make Sam feel safe around him, could repair all the trust and comfort they’d built in the last few weeks. And any apology that would be at all adequate would have to happen while Bobby wasn’t in earshot, because Dean might love that man like an uncle, but this was between him and Sam.

But even with Bobby’s presence and the lack of words, Dean still had to try to get out some admission of wrong and promises to do better, because that’s what Sam deserved.

When he finally limped downstairs, he found Sam folded up on one end of the couch, absorbed in his textbooks like Dean had seen him almost every day since he’d given them to Sam. Or maybe he was purposefully burying himself now in books, so he wouldn’t have to look up, touch, or interact with Dean.

Dean was about to sidle around toward Bobby’s study—to give his kid some space, and also buy himself some time—when Sam looked up and offered him a small smile. Suddenly (and not just because his knees had gone weak in relief that Sam was _looking_ at him), Dean couldn’t go anywhere but the seat beside him. “Hey, Sammy.”

Sam closed the book, but kept a couple fingers in the pages to mark his spot. “How are you feeling?”  

“Oh, awesome, y’know.” Dean sat gingerly on the couch, leaving a few inches of buffer between them. “How’s your arm?”

Sam shrugged. “Hardly feel it.”

“Well, that’s good.”  Dean rubbed his knees, and glanced toward the study, where Bobby could be heard muttering into the phone, presumably to a hunter, about alternate entrances into a museum. “Look, Sammy...I’m not gonna deny that I want to talk about this about as much as I want my molars pulled, but I have to—I’m sorry. I’m damn sorry about what happened last night, and...it got out of hand. I _let_ it get out of hand and that’s my fault, it was stupid even to start when I was high as the Hindenburg, and I’m just....yeah, I’ll...watch out for that, next time. And you watch me too, and you can always zip my ass into a sleeping bag, if I start weirding you out like that again.”

Sam was staring at him in a way that forcibly reminded Dean of the painful early days, when Sam had looked at him most of the time like he was speaking gibberish. Unnerved, Dean ran a hand through his hair and resisted the urge to ask if he had jam on his nose.

“Dean...” Sam’s eyes dropped, but not all the way to the floor. They fixed on some vague spot midway between their knees. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Uh.” Dean wondered if Sam had had the same night he had, or if this whole fucked-up mess was something he had hallucinated from too much oxy. Because Dean remembered grabbing Sam, groaning into his mouth, just wanting to get inside his skin like burning, and he had no idea how any of that would have triggered Sam and _not_ been Dean’s fault. It’s not like Sam could have triggered _himself_. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was.”

“No,” Sam said, even quieter. “It wasn’t.”

Sam _arguing_ with him was still novel enough to be surreal. Dean wasn’t sure yet what to do with it, especially about something like this. He opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again.

But Sam continued before he could get a thought out, low and rapid, eyes fixed away: “You d-don’t have to watch out. _I_ n-need to. But not for you, it’s...not b-because of you, b-b-bec-c-c—”

“Sam...I’m not following, man.”

Sam tightened his grip on his own hands in his lap, never lifting his eyes. And, fuck, he had gotten so much better in the last few months about eye contact when he talked to Dean. “I need to be...in control, Dean.”

If this wasn’t _Sam_ he was talking to, Dean would suspect he was hearing a roundabout declaration of a dominance fetish. Which Dean could totally, totally get behind—but this _was_ Sam, right, so yeah, not likely. That still left the thorny problem of what the hell Sam _meant._ He leaned in closer, pitching his voice as low as Sam’s. “I’m not following here, Sammy. What do you want to be in control of? You gotta spell it out for me.” _Please say me_ , his traitorous brain thought, coupled with a really unhelpful image of Sam pushing him down on his back on the couch, pinning his wrists down and purring the answer into Dean’s ear—

“Myself.” Sam’s fingers skittered a tight rhythm over his knuckles. “I have to...I can’t l-let...w-won’t let my own b-body...”

"What?” That was not where Dean had expected (or okay, wanted) this conversation to go, and a fucking awful, trainwreck suspicion was shredding his fantasy-image like salt through a spirit. “Sam, d’you—”

Bobby’s timing was almost magic, the floorboards creaking under his familiar tread, and the man himself appearing in the doorway. Dean wasn’t sure if he was pathetically grateful, or frustrated enough to shred some bandages just to give himself something to do with his hands. “Hey, Sam, I think I found a hit on that feathered snake you two scuffled with the other night. Would you take a gander at it, tell me if it’s the one? I’m trying to get an updated territory map.”

“Oh—” Sam looked up at Bobby, startled, then shot a questioning glance at Dean.

Dean forced a reassuring smile onto his face and jerked his head toward Bobby. “Go for it, not like I got that great a look at it.”

Sam got up to follow Bobby into the study, and Dean leaned slowly into the couch, easing out a breath. They’d talk later. Really talk. Probably sometime after they left Bobby’s. There wasn’t much reason to rush (they weren’t chasing a hunt, no one expected them anywhere), and this was one conversation that Dean wanted to have right, because whatever was going on in Sam’s brilliant, twisted-up brain, Dean sure as hell didn’t understand.

Hoped he didn’t, anyway.

~*~

Bobby and Sam made chili together that afternoon, each chopping about half the ingredients. Sam’s hands had been shaking at the start—not just because of the _knife_ in his hand, in a hunter’s house, but also because of the _conversation—_ but Bobby hadn’t criticized or even mentioned his slow, careful speed, for which he was grateful. If he’d cut himself, no power on earth could have kept Dean safely on the couch in the living room, and Sam just needed a little time when Dean wasn’t hurting himself, or being hurt, because of _Sam._

Bobby talked about what he called “his early bachelor days,” times he’d succeeded and failed at cooking for himself, keeping the clutter in the house from overwhelming him. Sam grew more and more interested despite all the anxieties nagging at him, and even managed to ask a few shy, halting questions. Bobby listened patiently and answered as though Sam were a _real_ , which amazed and terrified him.

And then when Sam went to check on Dean and let him know how long until dinner, he found Dean’s face suffused in one of the warmest, happiest smiles Sam had ever seen on him. He’d seen it last, he thought, the day at the ocean. Completely shot down from what he’d been planning to say, he was just about to ask Dean exactly how high _was_ he, when Dean raised his hands, beckoning Sam downwards.

Sam sat on the edge of the couch, and Dean slipped one hand through Sam’s hair, coming to rest on the back of his neck. Sam dropped his head forward, his breath hitching.

He knew that look on Dean’s face, the look in his heavy-lidded eyes. It meant that Dean wanted to kiss him. Other days, Dean would have pulled Sam down to him, laughing, his hands loose enough that Sam could pull away if he wanted, but now, even with that blissed-out smile on his face, Dean was holding back. Because of what had happened last night.

Even though Sam wanted to kiss him, to show Dean he didn’t have to worry, Sam was still afraid of it happening again, his freak body rearing up to betray him. But the idea of disappointing Dean now, denying him something that brought that sweet smile to his face, was too much. And Bobby was just in the other room—he couldn’t get carried away, surely.

So he leaned down, slowly and carefully, and rested his forehead against Dean’s, until their gaze crisscrossed. Dean’s hand squeezed the back of his neck tight, and Sam sucked in a shuddering breath before bringing his mouth to Dean’s.

The kiss set off immediate, white-hot explosions through Sam’s brain, silencing in one brush of lips and tongue all the worries buzzing in his brain just a moment ago, almost to the point where he forgot where he _was_ , Bobby and the kitchen and the rest of the world fading away. When Dean finally let him go, Sam was breathless, bracing now for balance, light-headed, but still in control.

Dean had his hands on Sam’s face, and he whispered—more like mouthed—“I am so fucking proud of you, baby,” and then Sam’s breath left him in an unsteady whoosh that was a half-laugh.

“You are _so_ high,” Sam said, leaning his head against the pillow above Dean, and Dean grinned, now, a little more like himself.

“Nah, I’m not. Well, okay, maybe a little. But I don’t need any of it, not as long as I got you.”

“Okay, Dean,” Sam said, and squeezed Dean’s hands. “Dinner’ll be ready in half an hour.”

Dinner was a slow, easy meal (Dean eating slowly because of his injuries, Sam careful of his manners, and Bobby matching their pace). Dean raved over the chili, Bobby quirked one side of his mouth, and Sam smiled quietly into his bowl.

Later, Dean moved back to the couch in the living room—Sam pushing him in that direction, Dean pretending the gentle hands on his shoulders were shoving him along, and laughing all the while—and Bobby and Sam washed up the bowls. Sam told him how he’d helped Pastor Jim bake bread, some of the best food he and Dean had had on the road.

The TV was running in the living room, a steady murmur of muted voices that changed in pitch and emotion as Dean flicked through the channels. Sam wasn’t thinking about it as anything but background noise (Dean hadn’t been watching television much these days, mostly watching Bobby’s old action flicks when he wasn’t sleeping or having Sam read to him) until, in one of the lulls in his and Bobby’s conversation, he heard a name that made him freeze over the sink, a used glass clenched hard in his hand.

 _Campbell_.

He wasn’t sure if Bobby caught it too or if Sam’s stillness gave it away, but the hunter turned toward him and gave the faucet handle a sharp twist. In the absence of running water or the clink of silverware, the smooth news anchor’s voice popped in sharp relief.

“...when yesterday, in memory of the White House Massacre sixteen years ago, the President laid a wreath at Mary Campbell’s statue before the hundreds of people who had come to pay their respects to our beloved— “

The announcer’s voice cut off between one word and the next, the TV’s flicker vanishing.

Without even being aware of it, Sam had turned toward Bobby, and saw an echo of his own rising horror on the hunter’s face.

As though they had rehearsed the motion (though Sam wondered if Bobby was driven by his same panicked fear, or some wiser, more _real_ reaction), both turned away from the sink and headed toward the living room doorway.

Dean, face pale and blank, was sitting stiffly on the couch, remote in hand. Both Bobby and Sam paused in the doorway, and, though he must have seen them in his peripheral vision, Dean gave no immediate sign of recognition, just continued staring at the black face of the TV. After several long seconds, he turned his head, as though in slow motion, and blinked up at them.

“I forgot,” he said, and Sam had never seen him look so young, so confused and _lost_. “How the fuck does —” Then he abruptly shook his head, grimacing. When he looked up again, his eyes were sharp, mouth twisted as though he were trying to grin around freshly broken ribs. “You didn’t happen to finish off that Jack, did you, Bobby?”

Sam drew in a breath, because Dean’s pills were _right there_ and Sam knew, like he knew the shape of a fist coming at his face, that the whiskey would be for washing them down, and he was just about to force out the word _no_ , to ask that Dean stop, when Bobby made a slight gesture and Sam stopped with his mouth only half open. Bobby’s movement hadn’t been a threat, but more a warning, like Dean would use when they were heading deeper into a creature’s lair and he wanted Sam to hold back until he could scout the way, so at least one of them wouldn’t fall off the edge.

Bobby disappeared into the kitchen, while Sam pressed against the doorway, wishing desperately he could go forward, sit next to Dean, and utterly unable to. Dean wasn’t looking at him. There was no way in hell he could want a freak sitting next to him (whatever he might _say_ most of the time) , not as he remembered his mother who had died because of monsters like Sam. They had stolen her from Dean so long ago, long before they had ever met, and Sam—selfish, disgusting monster—was terrified of what might happen to _himself_ , terrified that Dean might push him away forever, if he took the tiniest step forward now.

Then Bobby passed him, holding a tumbler with a few fingers’ full of amber liquid. Dean tossed it back like it was nothing, a few droplets of water when he was dying of thirst. Sam shuddered and clung harder to the doorframe.

Bobby was standing by Dean, watching him, and he said something under his breath Sam couldn’t hear, but Dean shook his head and fell back on the couch without opening his eyes. Bobby turned away. He walked slowly toward Sam, and Sam forced his eyes up, though it was a hell of a lot harder now than it had been just minutes before. He didn’t belong here, in a hunter’s house. He didn’t belong anywhere but camp, that camp for freaks and monsters, didn’t deserve anything but his bones cast in the fire, shouldn’t—

“Don’t leave him,” Bobby said, and his voice was forceful, like he had to make sure Sam understood. “He needs someone right now.”  Then he glanced back at Dean and cleared his throat. “I’ve got a project going in the basement. I should...get back to that. Holler if you need anything.”

Dean didn’t reply, didn’t move, didn’t give the least sign he’d heard. Each of Bobby’s steps down to the basement landed heavily, dejected thuds even as they grew almost too faint to hear. Sam inhaled deep, flexed his fingers, and stepped forward cautiously. His steps didn’t sound like Bobby’s, and he paused after each one, sure that Dean would know it was him, would turn around and tell him to get the hell away well before he reached the couch. But Dean didn’t, until finally Sam was close enough to reach out and touch, if he had that kind of courage. Sam sank to the floor, wrapping his arms tight around his knees.

Bobby had told him not to leave Dean alone, and Bobby knew best, so Sam wouldn’t leave, but he didn’t know what he could do or say. Sam had learned how to bind Dean’s wounds, to bring a smile to Dean’s face, but _this_ was Dean’s _mother_ , the mother who never, ever should have left him. The anniversary of her death had been _yesterday_ , and neither of them had given a single thought about the date, and what it _meant_. This was a hurt Sam couldn’t touch, that he could only sully and infect if he tried.

Then Dean’s eyes opened, and he pushed himself up with difficulty, swinging his legs down beside Sam. Sam saw Dean lurch and waver, unsteady on his feet, and Sam scrambled to his feet, reaching to help on instinct, but Dean spoke without looking at him.

“I got it, Sam.”

Sam slumped back against the base of the couch, his arms curling back around his legs. He watched as Dean limped—worse already than when he’d walked to the dinner table—into the kitchen. He heard the pantry door opening and closing, and then Dean limped back out, Bobby’s half-empty whiskey bottle in hand. He passed Sam without glancing over, heading straight toward the guest room where he and Sam had spent the previous night.

Sam remained huddled by the sofa for a long time. He heard the minutes clicking by on the clock on the mantlepiece, saw the long hand move halfway around the face before he remembered, _processed_ Bobby’s instructions, before he could force himself to his feet.

He’d seen it time and time again: when Dean was very very hurt, he ran. He smiled and said it was fine, he batted Sam’s hands back but never truly turned him away. This was just another kind of injury, another kind of wound. It still took a supreme act of will for Sam to pull away from the couch, and he stumbled badly on his first steps.

He found Dean passed out on top of the sheets, the empty bottle on the floor beside the bed. Sam swallowed, his breath hitching once, and then he crawled onto the bed beside Dean. Dean didn’t so much as twitch. After another long minute listening to Dean breathe—he was still breathing, thank fuck, Sam hadn’t failed him as much as he could have—Sam pressed his face into the pillow, fighting the urge to cry, useless freak tears from a useless freak who didn’t know how to help the real he loved.


	23. Chapter 23

They left Bobby’s on November fifth, while Dean was still limping slightly when he forgot to hide it and Sam hurt more in his gut from watching Dean’s tight smile than in his arm.  
  
They drove east. Dean kept his hands on the wheel, didn’t so much as glance at a map, and they didn’t talk as the long, brown prairie stretched around them, edged by the brown skeletons of shelterbelts and here and there with early snow.  
  
Sam could hear Dean’s voice in his head, telling him about those trees, the nearest cities, the speed limit (or lack thereof), the little red Charger that buzzed past them on the endless, two-lane highway, but Dean didn’t open his mouth except to mutter something nasty at the Charger, and Sam didn’t speak either.  
  
Maybe he should have realized it sooner as they traveled steadily east, but while they overnighted in Cambridge, Ohio, and crashed for a couple hours of shut-eye at a gas station east of Harrisburg, Sam was preoccupied every hour watching Dean’s body language, looking for signs that that night might end with them in a bar. It wasn’t until Dean stopped for gas outside Wilmington that Sam realized, checking out the huge trucker’s map taped in the hallway by the bathrooms.  
  
Washington, D.C. was barely an hour away. But Dean’s current route would have them skirting around the city, rather than going through it.  
  
Sam knew his hunch was right when they turned south on Highway 13 and didn’t stop until the wee hours of the morning and ten miles west of Norfolk.  
  
Half an hour after dawn, with early sunlight running its fingers down the Impala’s black sides, they pulled into a motel with a faded blue awning over the lobby door and duct tape holding one of the side windows together. The night manager took one look at the fistful of twenties Dean shoved under the glass partition, slid him a key—a real metal key, not one of the plastic cards that Sam was becoming more and more familiar with—and didn’t ask questions.  
  
Sam had hoped that Dean would sleep, but once they got into the room (faintly scented with old cigarette smoke and a hint of cat), he just settled on the end of one of the twin beds and stared down at his hands resting in his lap.  
  
Sam, after a moment’s hesitation, joined him on the opposite corner of the small bed. The springs beneath them creaked.  
  
He didn’t want to ask the question burning in his throat. This was...Mary Campbell-Winchester was not someone he could ask questions about, not a safe place for a monster to tread, no matter how much of a real he could pretend to be. And it wasn’t just that he didn’t have the  _right_ to ask, didn’t have the right to question what a mother meant when he never had one of his own—none that counted the way a  _real’s_ mother did—but that he didn’t know how Dean would react. He didn’t want to see Dean flinch, but the twisting anxiety in his gut, right next to his loathing for all the freaks that had ripped apart Dean’s life, meant that he couldn’t sit next to Dean on that battered bed, couldn’t face the next day ( _it can always get worse_ ), if he didn’t know where they were going.  
  
“W-we headed to W-W-Washington next?” Sam asked.  
  
Dean twitched, the movement visible even through the poor lighting in the room, and Sam’s hand almost reached for his shoulder. But he aborted the motion, lowering his fist to rest against the cheap comforter.  
  
Dean drew a deep, painful breath, and then released it. It was the fast sort of sound a man made getting punched in the gut. “I don’t know where they buried her,” he said, low and hoarse, toward his knees. “The funeral...the funeral was in Lawrence, Da—John took me. I remember all these people I didn’t know and D—he held my hand the whole time like he...but I don’t know where  _she_ —it’s not like they fucking  _buried_ her. There wouldn’t be a body, you know? We— _hunters_ , I mean—we burn the dead.”  
  
Sam felt like Victor had just slammed him in the abdomen with his baton. His chest was tight and painful and he couldn’t breathe and he  _couldn’t_. Mary Cam—Mary  _Winchester_ didn’t deserve that kind of death, the same kind of end destined for a monster, her ashes dropped in some pit like the filth/monsters/freaks she’d destroyed.  
  
“Hunter—no one ev-ever t-told you?”  
  
Dean laughed, but it had no humor in it. “Never asked.” He tilted his head, closed his eyes, like he was concentrating on popping a shoulder back into joint. “Who just forgets?” he asked quietly, and Sam heard the bitterness, anger, and shame that had been perceptible in all of Dean’s expressions and movements since the day after the anniversary. “Who fucking forgets their—how could I  _forget_ her? No one else ever fucking does.”  
  
Slowly, cautiously, afraid that Dean might slap him down (or worse, pull away), Sam put his hand over Dean’s, whose posture didn’t change, but at least he didn’t give any sign that Sam’s touch was unwelcome.  
  
“You were injured,” Sam said, just as quietly. “We both were, we didn’t have any ne-newspapers, and p-pain can m-make you forget...forget things you sh-shouldn’t.” He didn’t need to be thinking of Wednesdays, not now when all his attention and focus had to be on Dean. “Sh-she w-was your m-mother and she lo—sh-she wouldn’t want you t-t-to” ( _hate yourself_ ) “h-hurt yourself b-because you c-couldn’t re-remember.” He took a deep breath. “You didn’t forget  _her_ , just because you forgot the date.”  
  
Sam wasn’t sure if what he was saying was the truth, but he couldn’t imagine the woman that Dean had told him about wanting her son to suffer like this because of a simple, horrible, easy mistake. Then again, he couldn’t imagine talking about Hunter Winchester the way Dean had when they were kids, so there were things that he knew he still couldn’t understand about reals. But he hoped, for Dean’s sake, that the words were true.  
  
It took a long, slow minute, but beneath his hand Dean’s slowly unclenched, and then, cautiously, he turned his hand to take Sam’s. Sam replied with a squeeze, and suddenly his fingers were held in a fierce grip, as though Dean were hanging onto Sam to keep from being dragged down by an undertow.  
  
Sam would hold onto him forever, if Dean would let him.  
  
~*~  
  
Later that day, when they woke up in the crap hotel room in Suffolk, Dean felt like he’d had whiskey poured down his throat—the rough rasp when he swallowed, the ache that came from a few shots but not too many—but a good chunk of the fog of misery and aimlessness had faded in the night, lanced by Sam’s careful, nervous questions. It was less that Dean hated himself and more that he felt tired of the whole fucking thing.  
  
He’d forgotten, and maybe that made him a shitty son, but it wasn’t like that was something he didn’t already _know_. Part of him, a big part, wanted to hit the closest bar and not come up for air until he was choking on his own lungs, but the rest knew that getting shitfaced at this point wasn’t going to do anything but give Sam that pinched look around his eyes that meant he was worried but wouldn’t call Dean on his bullshit.  
  
Maybe Sam should call Dean on his bullshit more often.  
  
After a continental breakfast of bread (the broken toaster hadn’t produced heat, much less toast), sludge coffee and peanut butter, they were walking to the Impala when Sam stopped him with a hand on his arm.  
  
Dean paused and turned toward him, raising his eyebrows, bracing for something he wasn’t sure what.  
  
Sam met his eyes, fearless in a way that really shouldn’t startle Dean anymore, but he could never stop admiring it. “Y-you still look pretty tired. W-want me to drive?”  
  
Dean took a moment to think about that, about everything it was besides an offer to let him close his eyes a little longer. He relished the freedom of being behind the wheel of his car, had since the day Da—John had handed him the keys. He had both liked and hated that when they’d turned away from Bobby’s, he could pretend that it was the car nosing its way toward D.C. and not anything to do with him.  
  
But he was still so fucking damn tired. And there was something perilously close to hope in Sam’s eyes.  
  
“Sure, Sam,” he said. His hands fumbled just a little as he handed over the keys. “Just head wherever you want. I could use a few more winks.”  
  
He didn’t really think that he’d sleep, but he was out not ten minutes after they left the motel lot.  
  
He jerked awake when Sam braked the Impala neatly outside a Mom ‘n Pop diner called, creatively, “Mam ‘n Pops.” Dean blinked blearily at the sign, pretty sure he shouldn’t have to think about it as hard as he was.  
  
“Why’re we stopping?” he asked, fumbling with the seat belt Sam must have wrapped over him while he was out.  
  
Sam shrugged. “I was hungry.”  
  
And that, probably more than anything, made Dean give a tired grin and slide a hand over to open the door. “Good enough for me.”  
  
The place was the sort of greasy spoon where Dean felt comfortable. The waitress wore, over her street clothes, a stained apron emblazoned with the restaurant's logo, and chewed gum while she took their order of a double-decker burger and fries for Dean and a tuna-salad on rye with a fruit cup for Sam.  
  
After she walked away for Dean’s coffee and Sam’s Coke, Sam looked down, fiddling with the heavy paper napkin. “Dean, I think that maybe we should start looking for a hunt, if you’re u-up to it.”  
  
Dean blinked at him. “If I’m up...yeah, I guess with the injury and...yeah, I could see how you’d think I’d be a little slow on the trigger.” He thought about it for a second, sipping at the water that had come with their table, and then nodded. “Yeah, I think I’d be okay. You up for it, Sam?”  
  
Sam nodded and shrugged in the same motion, eyes still on Dean. “It’s just a flesh wound, so I should—why are you laughing?”  
  
“Nothing.” Dean wiped at his face. There was nothing there, but it felt like something had broken through anyway, like he’d walked through a cobweb and could brush away the strands. “Just, remind me sometime to show you Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”  
  
Sam’s mouth quirked. “So you think a hunt would be okay?”  
  
“Yeah. Maybe something slow and toothless. I’ll call Bobby, maybe he can rustle us up a nice ghost, some kind of haunting, nothing that the...you know, not something no one’s ever laid eyes on before. You notice anything on the internet that would fit the bill?”  
  
“I’ve been kind of distracted,” Sam said, with a twist of a smile. “And B-Bobby’s internet wasn’t that fast.”  
  
“I’ve been after him to get it revved, but he always says it’s just fine.”  
  
The waitress returned in a few minutes, sliding the plates down in front of them, asking them if they wanted anything else, and then walking away well before they could answer. Dean snorted toward her retreating back (the place was crowded, but not  _that_ crowded). He was about to take a bite of his more-grease-than-beef burger when his eyes skimmed over Sam's plate, and he frowned and put the burger down.  
  
"Didn't you order tuna?"  
  
Sam looked at the ham and cheese on white bread in his hands and chewed thoughtfully. "Yeah," he said at last. "I guess I did."  
  
Dean sighed. "They screwed up your order." He leaned back, raised his hand, and looked pointedly at their waitress, who was taking another order three tables down.  
  
"Dean—"  
  
"No, look. They're going to take that and bring back what you wanted. That's their  _job_ , not that anybody seems to know it around here."  
  
"Dean,  _don't_ ," Sam said, just as their waitress sauntered back to their table.  
  
“Is there a problem?” she asked, looking at Dean as though she knew perfectly well that there was a problem and really didn’t have time to deal with his crap.  
  
Pointing at Sam's plate, Dean began, "Well, unless you guys are breeding a whole new kind of tuna back there—"  
  
"It's  _fine_ ," Sam said, loud enough to drown him out. He pulled the plate closer and glared over the waitress’s shoulder as though she were coming to take away his firstborn. "It's the best ham and cheese sandwich I've ever had, I love it, I don't want anything else. I don't really like tuna. This is an excellent meal, _thank you_." He spat out the last words like bullets, and, after blinking in stunned confusion for a moment, their waitress said, “Okay,” and backed away.  
  
Dean stared at him, feeling stunned and unbalanced, as though he’d hit the Impala’s brakes hard enough to throw himself against the wheel. "Sam..." He hesitated, as Sam bent his head over his plate and poked moodily at his fruit cup. "Sorry," he said at last. "Didn't mean to go all super-controlling asshole on you."  
  
Sam still wouldn't look at him, but the tense way his jaw was set was nice to see. Finally, he lifted his head, though Dean knew he had to force himself to do so. "Don't do that, Dean. It's food. Re—good food, there's nothing wrong with it. I don't want anyone in trouble over it."  
  
Dean swallowed. "Hey. They wouldn't have—nobody’s gonna be  _fired_ over a tuna sandwich. It happens."  
  
Sam shrugged. "It's not worth the trouble. They would have just—thrown this one away. I don't want two. I don't want them to  _waste_ it. Can we please just talk about the h-hunt or s-something?"  
  
“Yeah. Sure,” Dean said. They kept poking at their food, but they didn’t actually talk. They’d both lost most of their appetite, and Dean, wishing that he could figure out how to get them back to the easy banter (though, come to think of it, there hadn’t been all that much of  _that_ lately either), eventually gave up, got up, and helped himself to a couple of styrofoam to-go boxes. He wasn’t sure that their waitress, now chatting with another set of customers that she clearly knew and one guy that she might have been dating, even noticed.  
  
On their way out, Sam cradling their to-go boxes, stopped by the Impala’s door. "Dean, I’m s-sorry, I shouldn't have— talked to you like that—"  
  
"No no no," Dean said, stopping short and turning to face him. "No, that is one of the things you do  _not_ get to apologize for. Seriously, Sam. Calling me on my bullshit is something I want you to do a  _lot_ , okay?" He leaned against the Impala’s warm hood, one hand sliding as close to Sam as it could get with the car between them. "I told you," he said, with a wink. "It gets me all hot under the collar.”  
  
Sam’s grin was easy and bright (if shadowed around the edges), and Dean realized that maybe in the last few days since...well, since the injury and his forgetting, he’d missed that.  
  
~*~  
  
They found a hunt in the snug little town of South Boston, Virginia, just shy of the North Carolina border. A string of semi-mysterious deaths following an estate sale had all the markings of a haunted object or curse.  
  
Sam was the one who suggested splitting up. They had a list of potential witnesses as long as the Impala’s bumper and still only a handful of clues as to what was killing people, or how it chose its targets. The victims weren’t falling into a particular type, or dying in a particular place. There were some common denominators among the various death locations, families, and artifacts in the victims’ homes, but in a town with as much history as South Boston had, that wasn’t hard to manage. So Sam’s suggestion had seemed reasonable: he’d sift through the dusty archives of the two-story library while Dean made the rounds of the traumatized civilian survivors and witnesses. That way Dean could  _move_ , question, chase, and Sam could apply his focus and patience to the books, and they’d cover a heck of a lot more ground.  
  
But it wasn’t the best arrangement. For one, Dean missed Sam’s steady presence as soon as he dropped him off in the morning, but he knew that this was the fastest way to wrap up the hunt (and knew too that he wouldn’t have been able to sit still long enough to go through all the records that they would need to cover, not with restless adrenaline still itching under his skin from the enforced stillness of his injury and...everything). He managed to resist picking up his cell until it was a quarter to noon and he was swinging back to that side of town so they could catch some lunch.  
  
"Hey Sam, how's it shaking? Any luck?"  
  
"Hey Dean—hold on." Sam’s voice was soft, almost a whisper. Dean heard the rustle and shift of the phone moving away from Sam’s ear, a couple steps, and then a thump. "Dean? I had to step outside, they weren’t happy when the phone went off and kept...yeah. It’s better out here.”  
  
Dean frowned. “Anyone giving you hassles? Because I can be there in like—”  
  
But he was cut off by Sam’s short laugh. “No, they just didn’t want me to make noise. It’s really quiet, kinda nice in there. I’ve found a lot, though I don’t know how much is going to be helpful yet. I’m going to have to run it past your witness reports.”  
  
“Sounds good. I guess that’s what libraries are for, right?” Dean had to smile. "So, you ready for some chow, Sammy? I thought we could try that Mexican place we passed earlier.”  
  
"Actually—" Sam paused. Dean could imagine him ducking his head, scuffing his feet on the edge of the concrete stairs. "I went down to the corner to get a sub. And a Sprite. I thought—I mean, you're not done yet, are you?"  
  
"Uh—no, nah, that last granny talked forever about her grandkids, and her kids, and her kids’ kids that somehow _aren’t_  her grandkids, and her kids’ dogs until I was about falling asleep, before throwing in there that they haven’t owned that house on Barrigan Street for about ten years and change. I barely avoided keeling over from boredom the whole time and learned pretty much squat. There's always one like her that’ll talk your ear off and not say much."  
  
"Ask the next one about the Rockwells. They seem to be showing up a lot in the records. Hey, maybe we can have Mexican tonight. You can keep going while you’re on a roll with the grannies. I mean, if you want. I’m kind of in the middle of one of the archive books they don’t let you check out so I don’t really want...I mean, if you want me to... I would've liked to have lunch with you."  
  
Dean was still smiling, drumming his fingers lightly on the steering wheel. "Nah, it's cool, Sam. We'll have Mexican tonight and catch up. Keep plugging away, and call me if you get any other names or new leads. Or, you know, anytime, if you want."  
  
"I will. Dean—"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
He heard Sam sigh against the phone, soft and relaxed. "It's a nice day."  
  
Dean looked out the window at the blue sky and picturesque oaks shading Main Street. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."  
  
Once he'd hung up, Dean cranked up the radio and sang along while beating time on the wheel. Usually he felt nothing but disgust for classic rock stations that played Bon Jovi, but today was an exception. Sure, he’d miss Sam for lunch, and that kind of sucked because he’d been looking forward to seeing his kid.  
  
But instead of waiting for Dean to remind him to eat or  _anything_ , Sam had walked away on his own from where Dean had left him, to buy food without Dean telling him to, because he had  _wanted_ to eat. Everything about today rocked as hard as Hendrix on a Stratocaster.  
  
He ended up grabbing food to-go from the local Mickey D’s, and then hit up the next few names on his list. Witness One from the second death wasn’t home, Witness Two was about as useful as Granny had been, and Dean got lost trying to find the third place, eating the last handful of cold fries from the bag and grumbling under his breath. There was no way in hell a town of this size needed to have a Misty Meadow Road  _and_ a Misty Meadow Drive. It was fucking  _redundant_.  
  
So on his third circuit through the edge of town, he pulled up at the same old stoplight (the town had a total of three) and scowled at the red light. It was the longest damn stoplight he’d met in the last six states and he knew he’d be there a while, dammit.  
  
Waiting and not really excited about trying to find the good old Misty Meadow Whatever-the-heck, he glanced over at the dinky motel at the side of the road.  
  
He had decided to put Sam and him up in the classier joint across town, but the Blue Oaks Motel, with its chipping blue paint and faded red doors, each room with its own pull-up parking space in the lot, reminded him of the string of rooms that had framed his childhood. Heck, and his adulthood, for that matter. He was trying, dammit, to do better for Sam, but he could understand sometimes John’s struggle over using ASC money to spring for a better place, or scraping by on what they had.  
  
Then all the good vibes he’d gotten from his call with Sam (not even the frustration of a thousand useless witnesses could take off that buzz) turned to cold dread.  
  
A black truck was parked in the motel lot.  
  
It gleamed a perfect, predatory ebony in the sunlight, the plates just a little too worn to match the gleaming bumper, an unmarked Sierra Grande, in every way identical to the one John Winchester drove.  
  
The cars honking behind him snapped Dean forward to see that the light had changed. He slammed on the gas and almost rear-ended the jeep in front of him when it slowed down to turn into a Pick ‘n Save just past the light. He turned hard into the first driveway he saw, not giving a damn if it were private or public property, if he should be aware of a goddamn dog. The second after he parked, his shaking fingers were fumbling out his phone, sliding over the numbers before he remembered the speed-dial for Sam's phone.  
  
When Sam answered before the second ring, Dean didn't pause to try to keep his voice down, control it, think of a way to keep from scaring Sam or any fucking thing because they may not have that kind of time. "Don't go outside. Don't leave. Where—where are you _right now_?"  
  
After a moment, Sam answered, voice quiet and tight. "Library. Archive room. What's wrong?"  
  
Dean sucked in a breath, pressing his hand to his forehead, trying to  _think_ when it was fucking hard even to keep his hands steady on the phone, the phone to his ear, his breathing quiet enough so he could hear Sam when he spoke. "You need to move. Go to the children's section. Stay out of sight of the front door, of  _any_ windows, if you can see him, he can—they can see you and—just wait for me. I'll be there in five. Don’t move unless—just call me if you have to, but  _stay there_."  
  
"Okay, Dean. I will."  
  
Urgent as it was, hard as the adrenaline rode Dean to  _do_ something, Sam still hung up first. It was hard to be the first one to close that line of connection when—he couldn’t finish the thought.  
  
He made it to the library in four, retaining just enough sense to scout out the block—the Impala was a big fucking beacon, John couldn't miss it if he were anywhere near—before bringing Sam out a side door and jogging back to the alley where he’d parked. He kept his head down, trying to keep behind dumpsters and turns when he could, and Sam ducked his head without being told, followed Dean’s instruction to lie down flat on the Impala’s seat without a word or question, like this was something they practiced every day. He left Sam in the car with a pistol and a knife while he dashed into their room for their duffels and computer bag, holding the shotgun at the ready the whole time and caring fuck-all who saw as long as it wasn’t  _him_.  
  
Only ten minutes later and fifteen miles outside city limits, did he tell Sam it was okay to sit up.  
  
Sam settled back against the seat and didn't ask questions. Dean knew he should offer some explanation, tell Sam why they’d bolted like a couple of jumpy rabbits—fuck, he was scared, but that was just fucking smart when you were up against a fucking Winchester—but he couldn’t, jaw locked tight. Hard enough to keep his eyes on the highway, burning past other vehicles like they were standing still. At some point he realized they were going twenty over the limit, but he just leaned harder on the gas. Fast, faster, fastest, never fucking fast or far enough. How far would they have to go to be safe from Winchester?  
  
But every mile he put between them and—fuck, it was just a truck, he didn’t even really  _know_ that his dad had been in that town, hunting them down—every mile just tightened the pressure on his chest, fed the feeling he was trapped, running into a trap, unable to escape no matter how fast he ran.  
  
He would face any of the bastards who had hurt Sam, down to his fucking  _relations_ , he would face them head-on, bare-handed, point-blank, without hesitation. But from John fucking Winchester he ran. And he would run every day, for the rest of his life, if he had to. Because he had learned everything he knew about hunting monsters from his father, and there was nothing he could do to keep Sam safe from that man if he could catch them. John didn’t make empty threats, and that last, it was a hell of a promise.  
  
 _You’re not my fucking son. I see you, I’m putting it down and you with it._  
  
Sam was a tight, silent figure beside him, one hand on Dean’s knee, the other clenched in his lap. Dean knew his kid was  _there_ , far more conscious of Sam than of the mile markers zipping past, one after another, but it took a while before he realized Sam was saying, quietly but urgently, “Dean. Dean.”  
  
It took an effort to unlock his jaw, get his throat to work, and when it did, his voice sounded nothing like it did comforting Sam in the night. “Yeah, Sammy?”  
  
Sam didn’t flinch. His grip tightened on Dean’s knee. “Dean, there’s a r-r-rest stop coming up. I, I think we should stop. We’re almost si-sixty miles out of South Boston. I think...I think we can stop, just for a minute.”  
  
Fuck. Sam had no fucking idea, but he could see how wigged out Dean was, he could see how Dean had the pedal flat to the floor, Dean’s grip on the wheel, how little fucking  _control_ Dean had. And Sam was telling him to _stop_.  
  
Dean jerked the wheel to take them into the right-hand lane, then switched to the brakes, applying them slow and easy, all the way until they rolled into the rest stop.  
  
He pulled into an empty parking space, killed the engine, and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until he saw fireworks bursting across the inside of his lids. He still couldn't talk to Sam. What was he going to say?  _See, this is what a shit excuse I have for a father. This is how I've endangered you. Ain’t it nice to be a fucking Winchester?_  
  
Sam sat, just breathing, for a long minute after the Impala had come to a stop. Then he reached for his seatbelt (kid still wore a fucking  _seatbelt_ ) and reached with both hands for Dean’s. It took a second for Dean to be able to release his fists, to open them enough for Sam’s touch. Sam held his hands as though they were fragile, delicate, likely as a wild bird to fly out of his hands. Dean swallowed and looked down at his fingers, broken a handful of times, scarred and callused and just about the same size as Sam’s. He closed his eyes tight when Sam leaned close and his chin brushed Dean’s shoulder.  
  
"Hey," he whispered. "Hey, we're okay. It's okay. We're safe, you got us out. We're going to be okay, Dean."  
  
That was the fucking last straw. That  _Sam_ —his Sam, who had suffered months and years in that fucking hellhole, torture and shit he couldn’t even imagine even in the nightmares that tried some nights to show him what a bastard Dean Winchester was, hunting and whoring and fucking around before even  _trying_ to get Sam out—was comforting him, because Dean's fucking father would kill them both if he saw them. Not just Dean (he could fucking well understand sometimes that he fucked up, maybe that he deserved a hell of a lot more shit than had come to him) but Sam, whom Dean didn’t deserve to begin with and had done fuck-all to deserve that kind of death.  
  
He might have tried to say something—he didn't know what, Sam's name at least—but all that came out was a choked grunt, and he twisted so he could wrap his arms around Sam, pulling him close, and closer, and tight as he could get. It wasn't words to tell him that Dean never deserved to have him, that Sam deserved someone without a fuckton of failures and a psycho father to boot, but Dean wasn't capable of anything else.  
  
It was a mark of the progress they’d made that even though there was nothing gentle about the embrace—Dean was fucking  _clinging_ and he would be ashamed of that later, when he felt like his world wasn’t going to fall apart with a shotgun blast—Sam didn’t tense up, only shifted enough to wiggle his own arms out to hold him, tight, in turn.  
  
Dean pressed his face against Sam's head, breathing in the smell of his hair—even the little hairs tickling his chin a reminder that Sam was  _here_ , not back in Freak Camp or lost or bleeding out in a parking lot—and maybe rubbing the dampness (fucking sweat or rain or some shit) from his cheeks. Then he kissed Sam's temple, long and hard. And he said it, because if they were both going to die tomorrow, or some day soon, Dean had to know that Sam  _knew_ , because he was the best thing in Dean’s life. And just because Dean couldn’t fucking take care of him, keep him safe like he should, didn’t make it any less true.  
  
"I love you."  
  
Sam froze—he didn't stiffen, just stopped the slow motions of his hands over Dean’s back with a hitch in his breath—then he pressed close again, turning his head to nuzzle at Dean's neck, and Dean sighed, closing his eyes. Okay. That was okay. He hadn't expected Sam to respond. He knew Sam wanted to stay with him, and, yeah, maybe because Sam didn’t know anything better, but now he knew he was loved. That shoddy truth was the best Dean had to give him.  
  
  
~*~  
  
They kept driving, though Dean eventually dropped the Impala’s speed down to his usual ten over. They skipped dinner—there were power bars in the back seat for Sam, if he needed anything, and Dean couldn’t think about pulling over for some nosh, not that close to the threat—and didn’t stop until they were two states away and two hours shy of midnight. The motel they stopped at was plain, but serviceable, on the edge of a town with maybe 800 souls. He parked in front long enough to get a room, then drove the Impala around to park in the back before they walked with the bags to their room. It had a view of the parking lot’s entrance and a quick escape hallway to their getaway. Sam didn't ask why they’d parked in the back, just as he hadn't questioned why Dean had yanked them out of the middle of a hunt. Dean wished he could feel flattered that Sam trusted him that much, but he was afraid it was just another symptom of the mindfuck he’d received in camp. That didn't stop him from taking Sam's hand in the parking lot, and not letting go until he had shut and bolted their door.  
  
Locks thrown, curtains closed—except for a lean slip of space where hopefully they would be able to see John before he saw them—and bags in the corner, Dean fell backward onto the single big bed, arm crossed over his eyes. After a moment of silence, he heard Sam shuffling around. When he lifted his arm just enough to see (fuck, don’t let the kid be crying, Dean couldn’t take them both falling apart right now), he saw Sam laying a thin line of salt before the windows and door. He had thought he was burned out today, as far as emotions went, but that sight made his chest ache enough that he re-covered his eyes and swallowed convulsively.  
  
He listened to Sam unzipping a bag in the bathroom—probably laying out their toiletries out like a surgeon’s tools, toothbrushes and paste in neat parallel lines on the left, combs and razors on the right—and a moment later, the bed dipped beside him. Slowly, as though he still thought Dean would bolt from any sudden movements, Sam stretched out next to him, body overlapping his. He tucked his head onto Dean's shoulder and rested his hand, ever so lightly, over Dean’s heart. "We're okay," he whispered, as he had hours earlier. "You and me. We can—we take care of each other."  
  
Freeing his hand, Dean ran his fingers over the back of Sam's head. Sam shivered slightly, and Dean dropped his hand to cover Sam’s over his chest. He could almost believe that. It was easy to forget sometimes, the way Sam flinched away from radio ads and clueless civilian conversation, that he had a reservoir of strength that Dean couldn't tap and shouldn't underestimate. He could almost believe that, together, they were a match for John Winchester.  
  
Rubbing his thumb back and forth slowly across Sam's hand, he answered, not because he believed that, but because it was something they both needed to hear. "Yeah, Sam. We will."  
  
Sam shifted, and Dean thought he felt Sam's lips press through his shirt. Then he said, very soft: "What about—the case? Who’s going to take care of the...the artifact? Or ghost? I th-think, from the r-research it was an artifact, or s-set of them. Who’s going to s-stop it now?"  
  
Dean exhaled. Of the two of them, Sam was always the better, the more  _human_ and compassionate. He hadn't forgotten. "You're right," Dean said, sitting up and reluctantly slipping out from under Sam's arm. Sam watched him, tense and worried, while Dean dug for the phone in his jacket.  
  
Dean stopped by the door, resting a hand against the doorframe. He should leave, he really should, so Sam wouldn’t have to worry so much, so he wouldn’t have to  _hear_ , so that Dean could break down if he had to without being witnessed by the person he cared about most in the world, but in the end, he couldn’t. In the hallway, he wouldn’t be able to see the road, the parking lot,  _Sam_ , wouldn’t have even that hint of warning that could save their lives, and so he couldn’t make himself reach for the door to bring this conversation outside.  
  
He tucked himself instead next to the bathroom door, someplace where he could see every corner of the room, but had enough protection just the same (it didn’t matter if he knew that the position wouldn’t save him or Sam in the long run. He was doing what he could now to hold back the fear, keep the jitters where they belonged; he wondered, fleetingly, if this was what Sam felt like all the time, so fucking  _afraid_ of his past coming back to lay hands on him), and hit the speed dial for Bobby’s. He held the phone tight to his ear, tight enough that it hurt, and tried to breathe waiting for him to pick up.  
  
"Singer Salvage, need junk, we’ve got it by the trunkful."  
  
Dean cleared his throat. "Hey, Bobby."  
  
"Hey, kid. How’s the leg treating you?"  
  
"Yeah, it’s fine, we’re fine. Listen, I need you to pass the word for someone to pick up a hunt in South Boston, Virginia. It looks like some kind of haunted object or ghost-related death-curse thing, possibly an artifact bounty, but I wouldn’t count on it. It’s definitely a repeating pattern, so someone needs to get down there ASAP. We drove in a couple days ago, didn't get much done, but I can tell you which witnesses you  _don't_ need to hit up."  
  
"Okay," Bobby said. "I got the info. But that begs the question, why aren’t you boys wrapping it up?”  
  
Dean pressed his lips in a line, shoulders hunching in a way that, even though he was aware of it, he couldn’t stop. "We had to clear out."  
  
“O-kay.” There was a pause, where Dean could hear Bobby’s breathing, could almost hear him  _thinking_. Then, "How's Sam doing?"  
  
Dean rubbed his face. "He's good. Really, really good, he's doing—great. No, seriously, this isn't about him, Bobby, this has nothing to do with him."  
  
"Uh- _huh_ ," Bobby drawled. “Then why’re you bolting from a basic case? You do something stupid, like K-O the sheriff's kid?”  
  
“Nah, nothing like...nothing like that.” Dean rubbed at his mouth and braced himself. “Hey, one hunter you definitely  _shouldn’t_...I mean, do you know where my—you know where John is?” As much as he was trying not to watch, out of the corner of his eye he saw Sam stiffen.  
  
"Why, you got something you wanna say to his face?"  
  
"No," Dean said shortly. "I just need to know, Bobby. It's important. Like, even if you can...can you rule out Virginia?"  
  
“Hm.” Dean heard a few papers shifting, the thump of a book. “We don’t  _talk_ , you understand, but last I heard of him he was down in New Mexico hunting some kind of fire monster. That was...about a week ago. That help?”  
  
“Maybe. That doesn’t rule out...anyway, just keep me posted, Bobby.”  
  
“All right, I’ll keep an eye out. Not like I don’t got enough shit to do. So what’re you and the brain up to now, if you’re done clearing out?”  
  
“Damned if I know.”  
  
“That’s what I figured. Well, how about you swing back around to the Dust Bowl, hit a couple basic hauntings I’ve had on my list forever, and hit my place in time for Thanksgiving? Bet Sam’s never had one of those, right? Hell, I’ll even spring for a Butterball.”  
  
“Seriously?” Dean cradled the phone to his ear, glancing back toward Sam, sitting rigid and silent on their bed. “You’re not sick of us yet, old man?”  
  
“Nah, saves me worrying when I see your ugly mug every once in a while. And watch yourself, kid, I can still kick your ass.”  
  
Dean laughed, without much heart. “Sure, Bobby, we’ll be there.”  _If we’re still around._  
  
He hung up and tucked his phone into his pocket before he could force himself to look Sam in the eye.  
  
And then he felt his stomach drop, because Sam was staring at him, eyes wide in his plaster-white face, hands gripping the sheets like they were the only thing keeping him from being swept away. “Sam, did you—”  
  
“Y-y-y-you s-s-saw your  _f-f-f-father_?”  
  
Dean wasn’t sure that he had an excuse for the lapse, but only then did he realize that the conversation with Bobby was the first time that he had told Sam what they were running from.  
  
“Fuck,” he said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, Sam, I’m so sorry.”  
  
“W-W-W-Winchester?” Sam’s chest was working like a bellows, short, sharp desperate breaths that he didn’t seem to notice. His eyes, fixed on Dean’s, showed terrified, barely controlled panic.  
  
“I—maybe. I saw him, maybe, okay?” Dean moved forward, hands extended, but didn’t dare reach out all the way, not sure in this moment what Sam would do if he tried his usual calming tactics. “Not even him, just his truck, but it was  _his_  truck, the exact model, and I didn’t know...yeah, I ran because I thought it was him.”  
  
They were inches from a panic attack, and he wasn’t sure this time if he’d be able to calm Sam down or if he’d join him in the meltdown and the paralyzing dread, but Sam got himself a little more under control, two slow, labored breaths easing down his borderline hyperventilation, and one hand released the covers to reach for Dean and pull him closer. But instead of letting Dean sit, Sam used him to pull himself to his feet, then released him, paced two steps away to the window, then two steps back.  
  
“Fuck,” he said. “Fucking fuck. But—just the truck, you said?”  
  
“Yeah,” Dean said. “There have to be, what, fucking hundreds of those?”  
  
“Thousands,” Sam agreed. “Maybe thousands. Might not be him.”  
  
“Yeah, probably not him. And we’re  _here_ , you know, so...”  
  
“Yeah.” Sam nodded. His hands twisted at his sides. “So it probably wasn’t W-Winchester—I mean, your dad.”  
  
“That doesn’t matter anymore,” Dean said. He found his own hands clenching at his sides.  
  
Sam stopped. Stopped dead still. And then nodded his head sharply once. “Oh.” Then, “We’ll be okay. You ran, so we’ll be okay.”  
  
“Yeah.” Dean agreed. “He’s...he’s not going to follow us here.”  
  
“Right. We’ll be fine.”  
  
Sam had said that more than a dozen times since they’d bolted from South Boston earlier that day. This was the first time that Dean suspected Sam couldn’t wholeheartedly believe it, either.  
  
~*~  
  
It took them a week to get over the rough edges of the fear. They hit Kentucky, Illinois, and Michigan before Dean stopped jumping at shadows and Sam stopped  _freezing_ when a dark-colored truck passed the Impala on the tree-lined highways or a big man in a leather jacket came out of a gas station as they pulled up.  
  
Dean would have liked to pretend that they were doing okay, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that these ghosts of his past were following him: first Mom, then Dad, the forgotten and the threat. He knew that was a bunch of shit he wouldn’t remember in the morning if he trusted himself right now to get drunk, but he couldn’t throw himself in the sweet oblivion of alcohol while keeping two hands tight on the wheel.  
  
By the time they reached Sioux Falls, they were both on edge, nerves strung tight, but Dean would have been lying if he’d said it didn’t feel damn good to see that familiar trucker’s cap and know that someone else was going to be watching his back. And damn good, too, not to be alone as the weather took a turn toward the cold.  
  
*  
  
The boys pulled up the day before Thanksgiving, Bobby drawn out of his house by the Impala’s familiar purr. He stood on the porch, shotgun in one hand (there were a fuckton of things in the world that knew how to steal a familiar car and drive it to a man’s house, and not all of them were Winchesters) and lifted the other hand in greeting. The boys got out of the car, but dawdled by their doors until Bobby realized he wasn’t the only paranoid bastard in the yard and laid the shotgun on the porch table. Then they moved toward the steps, shoulder to shoulder.  
  
They looked good, objectively, a couple of tall boys in plaid shirts, jackets and jeans, walking easily up toward his house. Dean’s injury had clearly healed clean, judging by how he had neither the limp from a continuing injury nor the deliberate stiffness of a man seeking to hide how much it pained him.  
  
“Hey, Bobby,” Dean said. He looked tired and pale, a slight shadow around his eyes, but that didn’t seem to be from any kind of infection or long-term wound. And Sam met Bobby’s eyes and smiled. He had that same tired look in his eyes, but any fear there was not directed toward Bobby.  
  
He wasn’t sure what to do with that, honestly, but it seemed like a good first step to be relieved.  
  
“Hey, Dean, Sam. You boys can toss your crap in the guest room, grab a soda, and get your asses to the kitchen.”  
  
Sam blinked a few times, but Dean laughed, tired. “Bobby, I think you’re running early on Turkey Day.”  
  
“I’m not making  _turkey_ yet. Got the pie dough in the fridge. It’s got to set a bit before we add the pumpkin.”  
  
“Bobby!” Dean’s eyes widened, the extra years brought on by exhaustion disappearing with the almost childlike delight in his face. “You’re making pie?”  
  
Bobby shrugged. “Why the hell not, it’s Thanksgiving. And I figured the best way to get you  _thanking_ me was to make some pie.” Bobby grinned, and the expression was slowly echoed in Dean’s and Sam’s faces. That felt good, even though he could worry about these boys sometimes, worry about the tension he saw in their hands (hovering, ready to grab the pistol Dean kept in his jacket or the knife at Sam’s belt), the way they  _watched_ their surroundings even though they were in his house and he had some of the best damn wards good favors and clean living could buy. But they were here, now, and that was the best he could do. And it was damned good to put that kind of excitement in their eyes. “All right, enough talk, you two idjits better toss your gear and help me, or you’re gonna be eating cold beef jerky instead of the twelve-pound turkey I was planning on.”  
  
“You’re a twelve-pound turkey,” Dean muttered, but he was still grinning, and he took off down the hallway without another word, Sam trailing in his wake with his own bag.  
  
When they reappeared, Bobby asked Sam, “So, you got the scoop yet about Thanksgiving?”  
  
Sam shrugged, self-conscious but miles from the obvious tension and fear he would have shown from the question even last visit. “I’ve r-read about the first Thanksgiving, in my American history book, and Dean’s told me about all the food. And we saw a couple Thanksgiving special episodes on TV.” Despite how Sam tried to hide it, Bobby could sense his anticipation.  
  
“Yep, that about covers it, I think. Time to figure out if you’re a cream corn or bread stuffing man.”  
  
He told the kids— _carefully_ —what to do, and they mashed up the homemade potatoes and mixed the boxed stuffing while they interspersed time in front of the TV, watching whatever local game was on, with a couple animated rounds of cards. That night Bobby shot the breeze with Dean and a couple of beers, while Sam almost casually worked on a history text on the couch.  
  
Thanksgiving Day dawned bright and cold. After Bobby corralled his dogs in the back, Dean brought Sam outside to explain the rules of football (with a lot of seemingly casual arm touches; Bobby might have been nearly as old as Methuselah, but he could tell when someone was getting a little closer than necessary to adjust a throwing stance), and when they came back in, Bobby had hot chocolate (and peppermint schnapps for himself and Dean) waiting for them.  
  
Dean took a big swallow. “This is damn fine, Bobby. Sam, you got peppermint in yours?”  
  
Sam shook his head, curiosity in his eyes. Dean leaned forward and then, remembering himself just in time, pulled back a little more abruptly. “I’ll have to...let you try some later.”  
  
“Oh, that reminds me—I came across something that might be useful for you, Sam." Bobby pulled himself up out of the couch and went over to his desk. He’d been keeping the roll of tape in the top drawer for the last week, just so he wouldn’t forget when the boys passed through again. He came back to the couch, settled, and offered the tape to Sam.  
  
Sam accepted it hesitantly. Bobby didn't miss the rapid blinking before he accepted, something very close to shock crossing his face before he took the roll. "Thank you," he said, quietly but sincerely. He turned the beige roll over once, picking slightly at the end. "W-what's it f-for?"  
  
"Well—" Bobby cleared his throat, keeping one eye on Sam examining the present, another on Dean edging over the kid’s shoulder to see what he had, and about half an eye on the timer for the potatoes. "I was thinking—it could come in handy to be able to cover that tattoo when you’re in public. It’s not exactly a gang sign, but people can still know what it is. And if you’re someplace down south when it’s frickin’ hot, it might even draw attention if you’re wearing turtlenecks. That tape’s specially designed to go on skin, advertised not even to come off in the shower, as long as you don’t pick at it.” He’d struggled with making sure he got Sam’s skin tone right, but as the boy held the roll in his hands, it was close enough that he didn’t think anyone would question it, not the way they’d question an ASC serial number.  
  
Sam jerked back, eyes wide, astonishment almost leading him to drop the roll, but a better word for Dean would have been  _delighted_. He grabbed the tape from Sam's loose hands, undisguised glee on his face.  
  
"Holy shit, Bobby, this is fucking awesome!"  
  
Sam turned back toward Dean, smiling hesitantly into Dean’s big grin. “It’s v-very nice, but is it...l-legal?"  
  
"Of course it's fucking legal," Dean said hotly. “Why wouldn’t it be? No law saying you need to be flashing your chest at any ASC assholes that come along. You’re  _out_ of that...you’re not there, and you’re not fucking going back, so it’s got nothing to do with you anymore. Hey, wanna try it out?” Dean stretched out a piece of tape and grinned, Sam smiling tentatively back at him.  
  
Bobby almost looked away from the emotion in Sam’s face, the determination in Dean’s, but he couldn’t. Good as those boys were together, his ingrained hunter instincts had a hard time  _not_ watching them for inconsistencies, signs that something was going wrong. He was too aware of how easy it was to screw up a life.  
  
Sam undid his top two buttons, glancing in Bobby’s direction. But his eyes locked on Dean’s face while Dean carefully applied the tape. Bobby almost expected the kid to stick his tongue out to get it over the numbers the way he wanted. If he hadn’t been watching, hadn’t been paying as much attention as he was, he would have missed Sam’s quiet words. "It won't really go away, you know," Sam whispered, while Dean’s fingers smoothed the tape over his pale skin. “You can’t change what—you can’t take it off.”  
  
Dean scowled, muttering back, “But this works. This is better, right? Don’t tell me you want to keep bundling up in flannel when it’s blazing hot out.”  
  
Sam's lips twisted in what was almost a smile. “I didn’t really notice. I’ve had...it’s not a problem.”  
  
“Problem or no, it’s a nice fucking thing to have a solution. C’mon, Sammy, now you don’t have to worry about tugging your shirt down. Or me pulling it too far down.” He grinned and wrapped up the tape, tucking it back into Sam’s hand. “Let me enjoy this, okay?”  
  
“You’re right,” Sam said, his smile still small but happy, and he directed his next words to Bobby. "This is—thank you, it’ll be very helpful."  
  
"Don't mention it," Bobby said gruffly. "Wasn't any trouble to pick up." It had taken him a couple weeks of side-research, actually, to find a decent manufacturer that had exactly what he wanted, but it was no trouble at all compared to the nightmare he could imagine if the wrong person ever saw that tattoo.  
  
"How m-much did it cost?" Sam asked.  
  
Bobby waved a hand in dismissal. "Couple o’ cents, don't worry about it. Consider it an early Christmas present." Sam flushed again at that, dropping his chin until it almost touched the newly placed tape.  
  
Dean beamed gratefully at Bobby, leaning against Sam’s chair as he rested his hand on the back of Sam’s neck. Bobby shifted his gaze out the window. Small gestures like these meant little enough compared to what he _hadn’t_ done for the kid in the past, but he was trying.  
  
"Anywhere else you want to put it?" Sam asked Dean, tilting his head back so he could look into Dean’s eyes. "There's other places you don't like to look at." He twitched his right hand, simultaneously referencing his forearm and torso. "But if you want to cover up all of them, we’d need a h-hell of a lot more tape.” Sam laughed, slightly, and tucked his head against Dean’s shoulder.  
  
Bobby wasn’t so stupid he didn’t know what Sam was talking about, the kinds of scars a man could pick up just doing the job, much less being surrounded by a pack of sadists for years like Sam had been. He watched Dean’s face fall with the same realization, torn between sick understanding and the desire not to wipe any kind of smile off Sam’s face. Finally, Dean huffed out a breath and kissed Sam on the top of his head. "No, we’re sticking to the basics. You don’t need to cover up one inch. Fuck, you don’t have to cover up a damn thing if you don’t want to, I know you and you’re one hundred percent awesome.”  
  
Whatever scars Sam carried, whatever he’d gone through, that was part of him. Bobby was glad that Dean had at least some grasp of that, complete idjit that he could be. But he felt it was probably a decent time to change the subject.  
  
“What do you boys say to cracking open that turkey?” he asked, already levering himself up. “It’s probably been done for the last half hour, but I don’t think that’ll do the old bird any harm.”  
  
Dean laughed and nudged Sam up off his shoulder. “Damn, Bobby, you make it sound so appetizing.”  
  
“Don’t mock me, kid, until you’ve tried it. You ever had a home-roasted turkey before, Sam?”  
  
The kid— _Sam_ —looked up at him with wide eyes. “No?”  
  
Of course he hadn’t. Bobby smiled. “Well then, you’re in for a treat.”  
  
~*~  
  
Later, when the turkey was more than half consumed, the dishes were cleaned, and the serotonin had laid them all out for a nap, Dean got up before Sam and went to find Bobby where he was gazing meditatively toward the Thanksgiving game on TV.  
  
Dean paused in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. When Bobby looked up, Dean grinned.  
  
"I could’ve kissed you for that roll of tape, Bobby."  
  
"Glad you found the strength to restrain yourself," Bobby said dryly.  
  
Dean smiled and raised his hands. "I did, but just barely. Seriously, it's perfect. I think it'll help Sam a lot, and with more than just covering up those damn numbers. I'm doing what I can, but it’s—it helps when someone else treats him like a person. And I mean, someone who knows, not just some damn civvy who doesn’t—who’s not in the loop. About all that shit.”  
  
"It's the least I can do," Bobby said, letting his gaze slide back to the TV. "You've got the recipe down, I’m just adding a little basting. He's made leaps and bounds in these four months, thanks to you. I hardly recognize the kid."  
  
It was Dean's turn to look away, passing a hand over his face. "Trust me, I fucked up plenty along the way. I still do. I mean, sometimes it's stupid stuff, stuff there’s no fucking way I could have known about, like, Jesus, _oranges_ , Bobby. But I’ve pulled some really dumbass moves, too. Shit I should have fucking  _known_ about. So, yeah, it’s good to see someone else knowing that...that he’s on the right track, you know?"  
  
"Well, you're getting it right where it counts. I'm starting to think he'll be okay, in the end."  
  
"Fuck. You really think so?" Dean shook his head, coming over and sinking into the couch beside Bobby. “Sometimes it just feels like every time we make honest-to-God progress, I fuck it up again.”  
  
"Dean, that kid’s  _talking_ to me now, he made a joke about extreme scarring, he’s driven hundreds of miles and saved your ass at least twice that you’ve  _told_ me, and we don’t talk that much. The first time you showed up here, he wouldn’t...well, he wasn’t exactly a Chatty Cathy. Tonight I almost had to eat my hat when he sat down with us to play cards without batting an eye.”  
  
"Yeah," Dean laughed. "Maybe next time he won't throw the game."  
  
“Damn, I wondered how I pulled off that last hand.” Bobby patted him on the shoulder. "Give him time. He’s already about a million miles from where you started out.”  
  
Dean grinned. “You can say that again.”  
  
“A million miles, kid.”  
  
What neither of them mentioned was the underlying understanding that there was still a long way to go.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Jacob as our long-distance penis consultant.

"There is no such thing as monsters," Mr. Ernest Krueger declared.  
  
Several nearby patrons of the bright, clean diner winced or hunched a little closer to their coffee, but not one head turned. Sam and Dean, seated across from the gray-haired and suspender-clad septuagenarian, glanced at each other, just to make sure there hadn’t been some mistake in the hearing.  
  
"It's all a government lie," Mr. Krueger continued at an aggressively loud volume, either oblivious or resistant to the general mood of his neighbors. “Just a smokescreen for the  _real_ story.” He took a gulp of water from the glass in front of him, and then turned his focus back to the Winchesters.  
  
"So," Sam said carefully. "When the White House was attacked in 1983..."  
  
"That footage was completely doctored! Those were people in costume, not even  _good_ costuming, just some contact lenses and fake teeth and hair extensions, and they were sent by the White House itself! It was all a ploy to get Nancy Reagan out of the picture. They knew she wouldn’t keep quiet for the  _rest_ of it!”  
  
"Okay," Dean said after a long pause, during which Mr. Krueger looked at them with hopeful, wild sincerity from his rheumy blue eyes, "I'll bite. Keep quiet about what?"  
  
Mr. Krueger leaned forward, hands planted on his knees, eyes fiercely squinted. "That Ronald Reagan was actually a Soviet plant. Yes," he added, seeing their faces. "Yes, he was. Do you know what's in the FREACS facility? Do you?"  
  
Dean opened his mouth and then closed it again, lips tight, but Sam leaned forward, eyes wide. "What is it?"  
  
“It’s  _people!_ ” Mr. Krueger shook his bent finger emphatically, and Sam twitched, then covered by reaching for his own glass. "It's people that get too close to the truth. The government tosses them in that black hole, calls them monsters, and it’s  _safe_ , see, because no one wants to look too close, no one cares about a freak, right? But it’s just propaganda instituted by the Red State!”  
  
Dean took a breath and leaned back, reminding himself that the guy was clearly a nut job and didn’t know shit about what he was talking about. “Look, Mr. Krueger, what does that have to do with...” And then it hit him, the last words catching in his throat because, looked at right, phrased right, the monster they hunted now and FREACS had at least one horrible thing in common.  
  
Sam finished for him. ”What does that have to do with children?” Compared to Dean he looked unruffled, but the hundred-kilowatt smile he’d given the waitress when they’d first sat down was gone like the old man had flipped a switch. “At least,” he amended, “with the eight children who’ve recently come down with an illness no doctors can identify?”  
  
“Well, it’s all the same brand of evil, ain’t it? This government’s just the old government in a new suit! You think this is new, how these kids are getting poisoned? Happened back in the seventies when all the flower girls and boys thought they were gonna make peace with the Reds by taking off their clothes and smoking them psycho-Daleks, and back in the fifties right when the Reds were moving into our turf, scoping out the ground after Hitler. You remember Hitler?”  
  
“Not personally,” Dean said.  
  
“Yeah, well he was the first Red Spy, the preeminent tsar! But they found him out in the end.”  
  
“What happened in the seventies and fifties, Mr. Krueger?” Sam’s voice was firm, focused, and Dean would never stop being so goddamn proud of him.  
  
Mr. Krueger, delighted at having a no-doubt rare captive audience, raised both hands to gesture as he explained, “The commies seeded the city water tank—which was in Rosebud in those days—with an experimental toxin compound. It was meant to soften us up for the invasion, but when old McClellan kicked up a fuss in Washington, they had to call it off. About a dozen kids died. Same thing happened in 1978, and that time we almost lost the whole dang town except the EPA opened an investigation, and the socialist Fed goons had to back off before they got their paws dirty.”  
  
“I...see.” Sam, who could usually wear a bland mask at the most outrageous witness statements, couldn’t completely cover his confusion and loss for words. “So, you’re saying that twice, about twenty years apart, this town has suffered from a number of children falling inexplicably ill?”  
  
Mr. Krueger looked disgruntled. “Didn’t I just  _say_ that?”  
  
“Yes, you did,” Dean agreed. “Perfectly clear, thank you for your time, Mr. K.” He stood, dropped a couple bills on the table and jerked his head at Sammy, eyebrows raised. “We’re just gonna head out now and look for some of those commies.”  
  
The man smiled so happily that, for a second, Dean almost felt bad. “You boys take care out there. You can’t trust anybody these days, not family, not television, and definitely not the government. You see a van full of those alphabet organization types poking their noses into this thing, you get  _out_. They get wind of this in Washington, those ASC goons’ll be all over this. I’ve had people flashing their badges and asking me questions about those kids before, and I was lucky they didn’t haul me away to that prison, so you watch yourselves. Never take a wooden nickel, don’t talk politics in church, and never trust the ASC.”  
  
Dean paused in the act of handing Sam his jacket, one hand lingering over his kid’s shoulder as he helped him pull it on (he wasn’t a child who needed the help, but it was a safe way to touch, to comfort, when Sam’s eyes were a little too wide and fixed on Krueger, his movements belated and jerky as he got up). He quirked a smile at the old man, but it wasn’t pretty. “Oh, I never do.”  
  
~*~  
  
A couple blocks past the diner, Dean huffed out a breath that steamed in the sharp air, and adjusted the collar of his jacket. “What a kook.”  
  
“Was he...ill, do you think? Like, not right in the head?” Sam split his attention between Dean and the sidewalk traffic, but Dean didn’t even spare a glance for the other pedestrians. Most of them dodged out of his way without much trouble, but when it looked like he was going to hit a particularly zoned-out businessman fumbling with his pager, Sam grabbed Dean by the sleeve and pulled him to the side. “Should we contact a doctor or someone to have him checked out?”  
  
Dean sighed. “Probably wouldn’t do any good. Did you see the slant-eyes he was getting? I could practically hear their  _oh, Ernest’s waylaid another innocent bystander_ pity. He’s just one of those nutcase conspiracy theorists who wouldn’t believe in the supernatural if they got strung up by a djinn, but this is the first time I’ve run into one, or tried to get info off of ‘em. Fuck. Given that he’s clearly playing without any face cards, it’s going to be damned hard to trust the details he  _did_ give us.”  
  
“We can easily verify the childhood illnesses in the fifties and seventies,” Sam said. “If the pattern he identified can be tied to our current case, we’ll at least have a lead.”  
  
“Dammit, Sam.” Dean leaned against a wall, grinding his elbows into the peeling paint. “It’s awesome, don’t get me wrong, but how can you be cool about that asshole just...getting it wrong, just dismissing...everything, the crap we deal with every day? Not that people can’t be completely messed up sometimes, but how can he be so _wrong_ with everything laid out in front of him?” Dean turned and punched the wall, a short sharp jab that would have scared Sam months before and now just made him worry that Dean might hurt his hand.  
  
“Hey,” Sam lay a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “We can focus on the hunt. We don’t need to talk to him again.”  
  
Dean turned, and there was a little light in his eyes. Something in Sam’s chest relaxed slightly. Before, it had looked like when Dean went out and drank so much that he gave Sam the keys.  
  
“He was right about one thing,” he said.  
  
Sam blinked. “What?”  
  
Dean shrugged and tucked his arm over Sam’s shoulders, pulling him close enough that Sam could feel the warmth of his breath against his cheek. “Don’t trust the ASC. And not everyone they take is a monster.”  
  
Sam looked down, feeling the blood rising in his face. Glancing around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear, he whispered, “D-do you think—the A-ASC will come? Like he said?”  
  
“Hey.” Dean tightened his grip, his voice pitched low too. “Don’t worry about that, dude. Mostly other hunters go after bigger fish, whatever brings in the dough or is already on the nightly news. ‘Sides, I grew up dodging those assholes, I’ve got a sixth sense for whenever they’re within a mile. They decide to take up this case, we’ll be a couple counties away before they book a motel room.”  
  
“Okay.” Sam took in a full breath, trying to make himself relax. They’d yet to run into any other hunters on a case—but Mr. Krueger’s remark was a sharp reminder that a lot of civilians were perfectly capable of spotting evidence and picking up a phone to call the ASC hotline. Sam had to trust Dean and stay focused, if they wanted to wrap up the hunt before anyone else got wind of it. “W-we’re going to have to wait on t-the research until the library opens tomorrow, b-but we have a witness who works on this street we can question. Do you remember Rob O’Malley?”  
  
“Yeah, that guy who’s related to most of the victims through blood, marriage, and shopping preference? The one with the junk shop?”  
  
Sam managed a smirk, and attempted to match the aloof tone of one of the mothers they’d talked to earlier. “He prefers  _antique boutique_.”  
  
Dean snorted. “I just bet he does.”  
  
Rob’s Antique Boutique, much-discussed pawn shop and secondhand store, was a block down from the diner, right where the small town’s main tourist street morphed from touristy little shops, cafes, and quaint street lights into the humdrum of Subway and Walmart. The copper chimes that rang as they stepped through the door were fashioned in the shape of little Dia de los Muertos skulls, grinning out through their patina of green.  
  
Dean narrowed his eyes at them and then glanced at Sam. “I’m gonna talk to Robbie,” he said. “Watch my back, maybe case the rest of the joint?”  
  
Sam nodded. “Should I look for anything in particular?”  
  
“Anything that looks suspicious, supernatural, or like a good deal.” Dean glared at a dusty, stuffed emu that had somehow, hideously, been worked into a coffee table. “Though there’s a hell of a lot of suspicious in here.”  
  
Sam smiled. “I’ll manage, Dean. And let you know if I find any evidence of the imminent commie invasion.”  
  
“You guys were just talking to old man Krueger!”  
  
The Winchesters whirled, Sam’s hands rising defensively, Dean’s twitching toward his pistol but the guy who had spoken was grinning at them with crooked teeth, wearing dreads and a wifebeater.  
  
“Your mama ever tell you it’s not nice to sneak up on people?” Dean demanded.  
  
“She told me not to listen in on other people’s conversations too, but it didn’t stick. Know how I know you was talking to old man Krueger? Because he’s the only guy I know as worries about commies.”  
  
Dean let his hand fall from the butt of his gun. “Are you Robert O’Malley?”  
  
“In the flesh.” The guy plucked his shirt away from his thin chest, still grinning. “And not much of that.”  
  
“I’ve got some questions for you,” Dean said, and nodded slightly at Sam.  
  
Sure that Dean would be able to handle one witness who seemed more...strange than argumentative, Sam turned away to investigate the rest of the store.  
  
The first few phrases ( _hoarder’s stash; dragon or kobold lair_ ) that came to his mind were probably not what a real would use for the piles of bent metal-work, broken china, rusted nails, unpolished glass lamps without bulbs hanging from the ceiling, sometimes low enough that Sam had to duck his head to avoid them. Dean would probably have called it junk, but as Sam moved between the irregular shelves and small tables crammed two-deep in figurines fashioned out of pop cans, he found something comforting about it: so many  _things_ in one place, reals’ things that may have passed their usefulness but were still there, given a second chance in this little shop. Plus, it reminded him a little of Bobby’s scrapyard. With Dean’s and Robert O’Malley’s voices fading behind him, the smell of dust and rust and strong tea mingling in the air, Sam felt that there was nothing particularly evil in this place. Strange things, maybe (certainly, like the small, fat, smiling man whose round stomach had been carved out to make a cup holder), but nothing truly evil.  
  
And that’s when he saw it: a small item jumbled among a dozen figurines carved like birds, beasts, faces, flowers. But the one peeking out at him from the edge of the blown glass ashtray was different in a way he couldn’t quite pinpoint.  
  
Cautious, checking around for any other reals, Sam picked it up.  
  
It was heavy and cool in his hand, a good weight, slightly worn on the back as though someone had rubbed it down smooth. The small face carved in the greenish-gold stone grinned up at him, the face of no monster he had ever seen. Sam found himself smiling back.  
  
 _Badass_ , Dean’s voice crowed in his head.  
  
There was a hole at the top for a lanyard or a chain, and as he weighed it in his hand, he had an idea.  
  
If Sam strung it on something, Dean might wear it. He wore a silver ring and a thin, black, braided band around his wrist, so it wasn’t impossible that he would wear this too, that he might  _like_ it. And even if he didn’t, he’d probably thank Sam anyway and tuck it away, leave it in the trunk, or let it drop somewhere, surely when Sam wasn't looking, because he was kind. So it wouldn’t be an  _imposition_. Even if Dean hated the figurine, Sam thought that Dean would like to receive a gift, like a physical reminder that Sam understood more now, that he could pretend to be real as hard as anyone, and that he…cared. It certainly wouldn't be as though he were trying to lay a  _claim_ on Dean. It wouldn't be like any kind of collar. Dean wouldn't see it that way. And if it were, he definitely wouldn't wear it.  
  
A month ago, Sam wouldn’t have even considered this kind of risk. Buying something as a gift—he wouldn’t have thought it possible, much less attempted it. And that new understanding made him brave, even through the clenching fear in his stomach, the slight dizziness that hit him when he turned back toward the counter, figurine clutched in his hand.  
  
Dean was still talking with the witness, but they’d gotten through the case details and seemed to be arguing about the Rolling Stones versus the Beatles. Sam knew which Dean preferred, so he knew which side of this argument would win, even if the fight never formally concluded.  
  
“Hey, Dean, you good?” he called, keeping his hand tucked to his side.  
  
“And you’re thinking with a modified vacuum cleaner instead of a brain if you think Yellow Submarine—hey, Sam! Yeah, we’re good.”  
  
“Good. I’m going to go to the restroom. I’ll meet you in the car?”  
  
Dean raised an eyebrow, glanced at Rob O’Malley, and then shrugged. “Yeah, sure, shout if this idiot tries to tell you shit about Keith Richards.”  
  
“Sure, Dean.” Sam waited until the big doors swung closed after Dean before turning to the proprietor. “I’d like to purchase this, please, quickly?”  
  
The man took one look at the amulet and grinned. “Good choice. Because I got to be honest with you, we don’t actually have a  _restroom_ , if you know what I’m saying. And this is a nice piece, did you know the Maori believed in a lot of hula about finding spirits and the interactions of the human and the divine for—”  
  
The Impala’s horn honked once, and Sam looked up, hurriedly scooping his change and the little brown paper bag out of Rob O’Malley’s hand. “I have to go. Thank you very much!”  
  
And he dashed out, as slowly as he could make himself go, with the bag shoved in the inner pocket of his jacket.  
  
~*~  
  
The next day, after a couple more fruitless witness interviews around town, they finally made it to the library, which offered plenty of proof that Mr. Krueger had been right: something had been going on for a while in this town. A similar series of child illnesses (and fatalities) had happened several times before, about twenty years apart, as regular as a generation. Within five minutes, Sam compiled a list of known monster types that attacked cyclically, along with an even longer list of possibilities, and they were off to the library. Sam headed straight to the microfilm while Dean paced over to the archive shelves.  
  
By an hour in, Sam had narrowed the list to either a striga or an extremely comprehensive family curse, and then, just before the two-hour mark, he hit pay-dirt. Newspapers had photographs covering the previous two attacks: a doctor in 1954 and a school teacher in 1976 looked like identical twins in different decades, and they wore the same “I’m attempting to look sympathetic, but I’m not pleased about getting my picture taken” expression. When no family connection could be found, Sam felt the excitement of an accelerating hunt in his gut. He printed both images, and Dean showed the best of the two to the head librarian, a silver-haired woman in her late sixties who was barely an inch shorter than Dean, with a kind smile and the ability to raise only one eyebrow, as she did at the photograph.  
  
“Well, that’s odd,” she said. “Yes, Dr. Earl Wilson, my granddaughter’s pediatrician, is a dead ringer. But I could have sworn he didn’t have any family in this area. You printed this off the microfilm? I could check the genealogies if you’d like, or call Annie, she would have Dr. Wilson’s phone number.”  
  
“No thanks, that’s all we need,” Dean told her, already turning on his heel toward Sam.  
  
“That’s it,” Sam said, as the library doors closed behind them. “He must be the striga. That fits with the cyclical attacks, the external handprint evidence on the houses, and how it’s moving through the families. Which means...”  
  
“Shit, the Sanchezes,” Dean said. “Their second daughter was the last to get hit—”  
  
“So their oldest son is the next logical target,” Sam finished. “Dean, it could be tonight.”  
  
“You said that blessed iron works on this fucker?” Dean was already popping the Impala’s trunk, getting out what they needed.  
  
“But only when it’s feeding,” Sam said. “It’s never been exterminated unless it opens itself up to absorb life force. How are we going to force it into vulnerability?”  
  
Dean paused in rummaging through the trunk. “I’ve never iced one of these bastards before, but the fact that we gotta catch it in the act means we have to be really damn close.”  
  
“Ah.” Sam shifted, hefting the bag of ammo Dean had handed him. “D-does that m-m-mean we’re letting it a-a-attack?”  
  
Dean straightened up and swore, quietly, viciously to himself. He hit the bumper of the Impala, and then turned to look Sam in the eye. “I don’t see another way around it. It wants kids, it’s marked out its next vic—these things move like the fucking wind, we don’t got a chance in hell of catching it in the open. It’ll zap someone else maybe tomorrow, maybe twenty years from now, if we don’t stop it now, even if that means that that kid...look, nothings going to happen to the kid, we’re the fucking Winchesters, right? So nothing’s going to happen to the kid. We’ll just stay close and jump it, soon as it’s inside, and make sure it never leaves, right?  
  
Sam nodded, slow and unhappy. “I don’t remember ever reading another way to do it.”  
  
“And it’s not like we can wait around forever. It only takes one cocky son of a bitch to spook this spook, and then it’s the same old shit in a couple decades. We’ve got to give this our best shot now.”  
  
Sixteen minutes later, they pulled up across the street from the Sanchez house. They had a decent view of two sides of the house, but if the striga snuck in the other side, they wouldn’t know it was there until the scream—if there was a scream. Sam hated that they were putting a real child at risk for even a second, but he had to have faith that Dean knew what he was doing, that this was a risk worth taking if it would save the other children who would fall prey to the monster if the Winchesters couldn’t stop it now.  
  
This wasn’t the kind of threat that they usually faced. The ASC bounty on a striga would be huge, and that thought had left his hands shaking as he carefully replaced the books that he’d cross-referenced. This had to be done quietly if they didn’t want the ASC hitting them afterward like a ton of bricks, but Sam wasn’t sure that the threat of the ASC to him and Dean justified not telling civilians that they should get the hell out of Dodge. Whatever Dodge was.  
  
When he caught sight of a movement along the top of the neighbor’s fence, he turned, expecting it to be nothing more than another branch moving in the wind. Instead he saw what looked like a pile of black rags disappear into the bushes below. It appeared a second later, creeping toward the window with something between animalistic grace and haphazard wind catcher movements, its spidery fingers caressing the window joints.  
  
“Dean!” Sam hissed.  
  
Dean was already reaching for his door handle as the window eased open, and in another breath the figure had folded itself inside.  
  
“Yeah, I see it. On three,” Dean said, as they tensed to spring out. “One—“  
  
Something broke in the house, a child began to scream but was abruptly choked off, and both Winchesters bolted out of the car and across the street before Dean could even draw breath for “two.”  
  
They ran full out, Sam pulling ahead of Dean and making the leap through the half-open window a full stride ahead of him.  
  
He ducked and rolled, the top edge of the window frame clipping his shoulder, but he came to his feet with the shotgun braced to his shoulder.  
  
The striga had disengaged from the child as soon as Sam had leaped through the window. It was an ugly creature, twisted, sickly-pale features framed by a cloak that reeked of ozone and moldering leaves. Its hands were as long and thin as the shoots of a strangling vine.  
  
The expression on its face when it saw Sam could not be properly termed a smile, but it was close. It closed its mouth, pale blue glow vanishing behind its thin lips, a second before Sam pulled the trigger.  
The shotgun blast hit the striga full in the chest. It jerked at the impact, but shrugged it off, and then skittered for the window.  
  
Dean was there to meet it. The next two blessed rounds emptied into its body didn’t do much but move it closer toward the door, away from the child, pale and coughing on his bed.  
  
“Dean, it has to—” That was as far as Sam got before the monster wheeled, grabbed him by the throat, and opened its mouth to reveal the pale glow within.  
  
Sam clawed at the beast’s hand around his throat, but the brittle-looking fingers were surprisingly strong. The edges of the world going blue around his vision, he could feel strength seeping out of him as surely as when he’d hung from a hook in FREACS, and he wondered, distantly, if Dean could get enough blessed rounds off before the striga completely drained his life force.  
  
Then the bedroom door burst open in a blaze of light, a man’s high-pitched voice swearing, a woman screaming, and Ernest Krueger, an American flag bandana tied over his grizzled hair and a muzzle-loading rifle in his hand, strode into the room.  
  
“I told you!” he shouted. “I told you they were coming for your children, but did you listen? Bet you’ll listen now, Sanchez.” He pointed the barrel at the striga and bellowed, “Go back home, you commie bastard!”  
  
Sam had long enough to wonder if there were any blessed rounds in that thing (if you could even find blessed ammo for a weapon that ancient) before Mr. Krueger slammed the gun straight into the striga’s head.  
  
Reeling back—more surprised than in pain—the monster gave a breathy roar, dropped Sam, and wheeled around to face the new threat. With one sweep of its arm, the striga threw Mr. Krueger into the wall hard enough to knock down several mounted soccer trophies, and Sam, wheezing and dizzy, dashed forward to help the old man.  
  
And then the monster had its bony hand around his throat again. Sam felt himself lifted, turned, until he could barely make out the beady eyes within the ragged hood, could see the burgeoning glow from the mouth, feel his chest tighten as though the air were being sucked from his lungs, and then Dean slammed into Sam’s side, firing twice in quick succession into the striga’s glowing maw, until the striga caved down in a pile of ash and ragged black cloth.  
  
Sam fell, coughing hard, feeling air and energy rush back into his lungs as small drifts of white light floated from the striga’s mouth. He felt Dean’s hand on his shoulder, pulling him up, and Dean’s worried, “Sam? Sammy?” in his ear.  
  
He coughed once more and then managed a weak smile. “I’m fine, Dean, I’m…okay.” He used Dean’s shoulder to pull himself up. “Is Mr. Krueger?”  
  
The old man groaned in the corner, and Sam stumbled toward him. Blood shone on the side of Mr. Krueger’s head, but his pulse, when Sam put his fingers on his throat, was steady.  
  
“Commies, my ass,” Dean muttered. But before Sam could ask, Dean had his phone to his ear and was calling an ambulance, just as the frantic parents pushed forward to demand to know what the hell was going on and to take their trembling child into their arms.  
  
~*~  
  
Fordyce General Hospital wasn’t very busy at that time of night, and Mr. Krueger received immediate care in the form of the harried ER staff, who replaced the bloody American flag bandana with bandages. The old man was as pale as the freak he’d helped take down, but it still took two medics to pry his old muzzle-loader out of his hands.  
  
Sam had been so anxious about him that Dean drove after the ambulance, and they loitered in the hospital entryway, Dean keeping an eye on the news scrolling across the corner TV. It had been a good hunt—okay, the damned thing had gone pear-shaped in the end, but they’d killed the bastard, and everyone, especially Sam, was alive, so that covered everything that really mattered—but he didn’t want to be in town when the ASC landed. And those bastards would. There had been too many witnesses, too much fuss, 911 called, and a civvy hurt in the line of fire.  
  
The damn nurses were tight-lipped with the old man’s personal medical information no matter how hard Dean insisted they were Uncle Ernest’s family. Dean was just about to do something stupid (the pinched look in Sam’s face had been getting more and more worried) when an elderly woman strode through the automatic doors and up to the desk. A brown leather handbag swung from her elbow, and her fur-lined cream coat showed some wear around the shoulders and elbows. Her oversized, dark-rimmed glasses made her eyes twice as large, and her hands were swollen around a simple golden band sporting a modest diamond.  
  
“Excuse me, I’m Catherine Krueger.” She spoke a shade too loudly with precise enunciation, like someone used to dealing with the hard-of-hearing. “I need to see my husband, Ernest Krueger.”  
  
“I’ll be happy to give you a room number once I see some ID,” the nurse said, more cordially. “Your nephews have been pretty anxious about Mr. Krueger’s condition as well.”  
  
Mrs. Krueger looked at them in surprise, and Dean coughed and said, “Well, we’re  _like_ family. I’m Dean and this is Sam, we were with your husband at the, uh, attack. Just wanted to make sure he pulled through okay.”  
  
Mrs. Krueger’s eyes moved over both of them. “I’ve already spoken to the paramedics and George Sanchez about what happened. I take it you’re the boys responsible for saving Ernest from the freak that’s been sickening those children.”  
  
Dean glanced at Sam, but his eyes were down, his hands clenched on themselves, and while he didn’t look close to a panic attack, exactly, he wasn’t about to jump into the conversation, either.  
  
“Yes, ma’am,” Dean said. “I take it you don’t…?”  
  
She smiled thinly. “Think everything wrong in the world is the fault of the Red Menace? No. Ernest hasn’t been right in the head for quite some time, and most days I’m grateful that he’s got a fixation, not a…loss. But not, you can imagine, on days when he throws himself into the breach with an unloaded weapon.”  
  
Sam lifted his head, frowning. “H-how did you know that, ma’am?” Cleaning up before the cops arrived, they’d realized the muzzle-loader had been as empty as a frat keg on Monday.  
  
“I’ve been hiding and selling off his ammunition since he started insisting commies killed poor Mary Campbell because she knew too much and were digging up our petunias in their spare time.” The woman sighed, and Dean, looking down at his own clenched fist, saw Sam’s hand jerk toward him, but stop short. He was grateful for that. He suspected Mrs. Krueger was sharp enough to get an inkling of what they were trying to hide.  
  
“No, I don’t share his delusion,” she said. “Couldn’t believe most of the awful things he assumed about the world. I assume my own evils, but keep my mouth shut. It makes the world, if not a better place, a quieter one. But I’d like to thank you anyway. Ernest…hasn’t got enough cards to play go fish, but my life would have been a sorrier place without the old coot.”  
  
“I’m s-sorry that we c-couldn’t protect him better,” Sam said, softly, to the floor.  
  
She chuckled dryly. “Young man, all the good citizens of this town combined couldn’t keep Ernest out of trouble. If he’s up for visitors, I’ll let you come along so he can thank you in person.”  
  
Mr. Krueger was quite ready for visitors. They found him sitting up in bed, haranguing the nurse about the contents of the IV bag attached to the back of his hand.  
  
“Ernest, that’s quite enough of that,” Mrs. Krueger said, formidable without raising her voice, and Mr. Krueger fell quiet at once. “You’ll give me your spare car keys when we get home. I can’t believe you still had anything that would start that old rust-bucket. And you scared me half to death disappearing like that without a word. We will have a talk, but right now I think you have something to say to these boys.”  
  
Mr. Krueger, who had been nodding and mumbling agreements with his wife, looked up, eyes lit, when she mentioned them. “See, boys! Those Russians are the only kind of freaks we need to worry about. Ugly sons of bitches, aren't they?"  
  
Dean snorted, though last minute he tried to turn it into a cough. Glancing to the side, he caught Sam’s broad grin, one of the widest he’d ever seen, and that alone made sticking around worth it.  
  
“Oh, for God’s sake, Ernest,” Mrs. Krueger sighed, but Dean cleared his throat.  
  
“Yes, sir, we won’t forget that anytime soon. Gonna keep an eye out for those commies at every turn.”  
  
Mr. Krueger raised both hands, beckoning both of them forward. They approached hesitantly, until he could lean forward and grasp them with a hand on each of their shoulders. “You are good boys,” he pronounced, looking between them, and Dean would have had to fight back a laugh at the old man’s intensity, if there wasn’t something deadly serious in it.  
  
“Good, American boys,” Mr. Krueger repeated. “You’re fighting a good fight. Me, I’m not as young as I used to be, can’t do so much. But you two have time on your side, and you’re smart and quick. Quick as a whip. That’s good. I’ll sleep better, knowing there’s Americans like you fighting the good fight, keeping watch. So thank you.” He smiled, wide and sincere.  
  
For once, Dean didn’t have a ready response. Sam looked even more affected; his eyes held Mr. Krueger’s, his cheeks flushed and lips parted in amazement.  
  
“All right, Ernest, you’ve said your piece, now let those boys go home and get some rest,” Mrs. Krueger said, and gently chivvied them toward the door.  
  
They didn’t speak until they’d reached the Impala, when Sam said, in an awed tone, “He said I was...a good American.”  
  
“Well, yeah,” Dean said, and tried to catch his eye. “Even he’s got enough marbles to see that.”  
  
Sam’s mouth quirked, and he looked down before meeting Dean’s eye. “I don’t know, Dean. Have you ever considered that I might have been born in Russia?”  
  
Snorting a laugh, Dean knocked his shoulder against Sam’s before turning over the engine. There was a motel and a bed ahead of them where they’d get a few hours of shut-eye before they left town.  
  
~*~

Seven hours after checking each other for wounds, showering, and passing out, Dean woke up when Sam slipped out from underneath his arm. He garbled something along the lines of “Sammywhereyagoin,” to which Sam said, “Bathroom,” a smile in his voice. Still muttering under his breath, Dean reluctantly released him. There weren’t too many things that could grab him in the few feet between the bed and bathroom, and Sam would come back on his own.  
  
He couldn’t doze off, though, not when the memory of the striga half-strangling Sam kept flashing in front of his closed lids. Instead he watched the bathroom, vaguely alert for any sound of danger or the silence that could be even more threatening.  
  
Paranoid, sure. But he was still alive, and that’s what counted in a Winchester’s books.  
  
When Sam left the bathroom, he detoured around the bed to the window, where he pulled the heavy blackout curtain back just enough to peer out. The rosy-yellow light of early dawn lit his face like a TV angel’s, highlighting the frown creasing his face as he rolled one shoulder back, absently working the muscle with the fingers of his other hand.  
  
If the last few months of living with Sam had taught Dean anything, it was how very rare it was for Sam to actually _show_ discomfort. Dean pulled himself up, rubbing hard at his face, trying to work the sleep out of his eyes. “Shoulder giving you trouble?”  
  
Sam jumped and dropped his hand like he had been burned—not like he would have flinched in the early weeks, but Dean felt like a dick anyway, like he had deliberately snuck up behind Sam.  
  
But when Sam turned to him, letting the curtain drop the room back into darkness, his expression was startled, but not afraid. “Just a little. Hardly any.”  
  
Dean reached up to turn on the bedside lamp and then patted the mattress beside him. “Grab a couple of Advil and have a seat.”  
  
“I don’t need it,” Sam protested, and Dean bit his tongue before he could say something stupid like, J _ust do it to make me happy_. He’d never said that to Sam, and he  _wouldn’t_ because he  _knew_ that was a bad fucking idea. Even the thought of Sam doing  _anything_ for that reason made him sick.  
  
Instead, he looked Sam in the eye. “Promise you’ll take it if it gets worse?” Sam nodded, solemn as ever, and Dean patted the bed again. “C’mere, Sammy. Lemme try something.”  
  
Sam sat, turned toward him curiously, but Dean pulled him around, gently, until he was facing the window. He rested his knuckles lightly on Sam’s back, careful of his tender shoulder joint, tracing the length of his spine before spreading his palms flat and sliding them back up.  
  
Through the thin material of Sam’s nightshirt, he could feel the rough furrows crisscrossing Sam’s skin, but he didn’t focus on that. He kept his attention on Sam’s warmth, the curve of his neck as he bent his head forward. Dean’s fingers found the base of Sam’s neck, kneading small circles, and Sam’s breath caught.  
  
Dean shifted closer, stretching one leg out next to Sam’s, bringing his chest a breath away from making contact with Sam’s back. He rested his thumbs at Sam’s hairline and scritched his fingers over Sam’s scalp.  
  
Sam moaned, a quiet breathy noise that came close to a whimper, but wasn’t pain. Dean knew the difference. Though this was a new noise, he could tell it was closer to  _want_ and  _need_ than _stop that hurts_.  
  
Dean dropped his mouth to the back of Sam’s neck, and he heard Sam’s breath catch again. As he pressed a second kiss to the other side of Sam’s neck (maybe dragging his lips a little, letting his tongue linger on Sam’s soft skin, it was fucking hard to limit himself when it came to touching Sam), Sam made that sound again, low and desperate, practically a  _keen_.  
  
Oh, fuck. Dean was no rookie here. He’d been in roughly the same position a dozen times before with girls and guys happy to let him touch with the potential-promise of more, but it had never been so hot or meaningful or _dangerous_ as this, now, with Sam.  
  
He knew what this was, what line they were skirting, how close they were and how easy it would be to cross out of PG territory.  
  
And fuck, yes, he wanted. He could get hard as hell just  _looking_ at Sam sometimes, much less being able to touch him, feeling Sam’s breath go shaky just from a brush of his lips. And always before he’d known his only possible choice was to leg it to the bathroom, turn on the water, and get a hand on himself, because anything else was  _not okay_  for Sam.  
  
Sam hadn’t said anything lately to change that understanding, but there’d been a jump in the intensity of some kisses, in his touching and  _gripping_ and getting all over Dean—but they’d both gone too fucking far not so long ago, and now it was the memory of Sam pulling away from him, barely looking at him after they’d danced too close to that line, that had Dean treading more carefully than he ever had before.  
  
Not that he was doing any treading yet, no. Not without Sam’s explicit  _yes_. But Dean was willing to bet his very favorite sawed-off that Sam had the same party in his pants as Dean right now (and holy shit, what a heady thought that Sam could be turned on by  _Dean_ ), and sweet motherfucking Christ, Dean wanted to make Sam feel good. He wanted to take Sam there, to watch him writhe and flush and break apart under the caress of Dean’s hands, maybe with Dean’s name on his lips.  
  
Slowly, he slipped one hand around to Sam’s stomach, resting there as his other thumb continued rubbing circles at the base of Sam’s skull. Resting his chin on Sam’s shoulder, Dean let his words gust across Sam’s ear. “That feel good, Sammy?” That earned him only another low, indecipherable noise. Dean pressed his hand tighter to Sam’s stomach. “What do you want, baby? Just tell me, it’s all okay.”  
  
A shudder ran through Sam, his hands tightening into white-knuckled fists the same moment he drew his breath in and  _stopped_.  
  
Dean froze and drew back, slowly pulling his hands off of Sam’s suddenly stiff and unresponsive body.  _Shit_ , Dean was a fucking pushy asshole. He knew that. But there was a fucking difference between baiting a drunk asshole in a bar who thought he knew what it was to hunt, and completely ignoring the body language of a trauma survivor who wanted him to  _back the fuck off_. Both Bobby and Pastor Jim would be justified thrashing the shit out of him the next time they saw him. How many ways did Sam have to show him that he _was not ready_  to go past the PG line before Dean got it through his thick skull? Why did he have to keep  _pushing_ , just another fucking pervert groping at him and—  
  
Sam drew his knees to his chest, circling them with arms tight and tense, compressing himself down to an unhappy, smaller-than-should-be-possible ball of Sam.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he gasped, muffled by his knees but misery audible in every syllable. ”I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”  
  
“Hey.” Dean shifted around to face Sam, careful not to touch him. “Look, Sam, this ain’t your fault, you didn’t do anything, all right? I’m the one who started it—look, it’s fine, I’m just, I’m just gonna get out of your space. Or if you need the first cold shower, you got it, whatever you want.”  
  
“Don’t want anything.” Sam’s voice was indistinct within the tight ring of his arms and knees, but Dean‘s stomach swooped like a broken rollercoaster. Could he have misread Sam’s body language that bad—sure, he hadn’t been in a position to  _see_ the giveaway tent in his pajamas, but— “Don’t want it, didn’t, no, no,  _no_ , I didn’t.”  
  
“Sam.” Dean swallowed through his dry throat, barely daring to touch Sam’s foot, over the sheet. “Look, it’s okay, I swear—you don’t have to—I don’t know what those bastards—but I ain’t mad, all right? Not ever. I mean, I’d be a hell of a hypocrite if I got mad about you jacking off, you know?”  
  
Sam lifted his head, and Dean was taken aback by the blank shock in his face. Sam stared at Dean, his grip on his knees slipping; and then he shook his head, quick and decisive. “No, I d-d-don’t—” He took a breath and looked Dean in the eye. “I don’t do that.”  
  
Dean found his hands digging into the comforter for balance, as though the bed underneath them were threatening to spill them onto the thin carpet. He couldn’t have understood. Or Sam didn’t understand. Too many times they’d spoken across each other, the same phrase meaning something horribly different to each of them. “Sam, I dunno what you think—I don’t mean anything  _bad_ , y’know—”  
  
“T-t-t-touching. Yourself.” Sam swallowed, his throat visibly working. He was pale as the white walls, but he didn’t look away from Dean’s eyes while his hands twisted together in his lap. “Th-that’s what that means.”  
  
Even after all these months, Sam could say  _one fucking thing_  and leave Dean stripped down, gaping and defenseless as a toddler confronted by a wendigo, fucked beyond all belief. Dean dropped his face into his hand, a motion that served no purpose but to buy himself a few fucking minutes to think.  
  
When that offered nothing but white-noise panic, he answered without lifting his head. “Yeah, that’s what it means.”  
  
“And I  _don’t_.” Sam’s voice cracked and broke. They had been at this fucking point often enough that Dean knew that meant he was close to tears. “I don’t, I don’t do that.”  
  
“Sam.” Dean looked up before taking one of Sam’s hands, pulling it free of the tight tangle. He couldn’t help himself. He needed connection, he needed to know that the ghost-pale boy across from him was real and not just an alcohol-fueled nightmare of a Sam he never wanted to see before him. “Sam, what did they do to you?”  
  
Sam drew in an unsteady breath. “Nothing. Not to m-me. I never got caught.”  
  
Dean didn’t look away. “And if you were?”  
  
Sam lifted his eyes, and Dean saw the terrified kid he had known in Boulder, the almost-stranger who had shied from the television and looked with expectation at Dean’s hands when Dean had been close to tears. “They used boiling water. Over our hands.” His voice was hoarse, the hand within Dean’s holding on fiercely. “I saw it happen, before I ever thought to do it. So it never happened to me.”  
  
But he had seen it. Dean didn’t know whether to cry or vomit. Sam was too fucking young to have gone through _any_ of that, to have been stripped of his innocence and first experiences with his body and sex, all with a systematic evil that made Dean want to scream, smash everything within reach and drink a fucking liquor store. But none of that would do a fucking thing to help Sam in the here and now.  
  
Dean drew in a breath and offered his arm. “Can you—if you want to, Sam.” For a moment, Sam looked at him in blank confusion; but his understanding turned on like a light, relief pushing him forward to Dean’s side, pressing himself close and tucking his head to Dean’s shoulder. He fit like he had every night before, like a part of Dean that he’d never known he was lacking. Dean let out a shuddering breath and pulled him in tight.  
  
“Just to be crystal clear,” he said quietly, his hand on Sam’s shoulder moving unconsciously (but with Sam relaxing into the motion, it was damned hard to stop). “This is a pro-masturbation environment, no exceptions, no restrictions. You, me, the fucking neighbors, the landlord’s dog, I don’t care who’s getting off, they’ve got my full support. And I would’ve told you that ages ago if I’d had a fucking clue. Seriously, the more the better, Sam.”  
  
Sam almost smiled, but then shook his head slowly. “I don’t...” He made a vague gesture which lacked the conviction and confidence to be obscene. Dean fucking wished for both.  
  
“You can, though. I am one hundred percent A-OK with this. You want privacy, some lube, I’ve got a Playb—yeah, anything, whatever you need.”  
  
Sam twitched, dropping his gaze. “I don’t...I don’t think I can. I...I don’t want...to do that.”  
  
Dean swallowed. How much worse could this  _get_?  
  
But Sam glanced up to Dean, eyes wide and breathing a shade too fast. “I don’t think I could—” He stopped to swallow, painfully. “Do that, t-touch myself. B-b-but I like it...when y-you touch me.”  
  
Dean blinked. And then took a deep breath, because he wasn’t sure that he had been, his head felt a little funny, and that was one statement that he had to be  _fucking sure_  about before he made one damn move or the consequences would destroy them in a way there was no coming back from. “Sam, I need you to say that again because I don’t...I have to be sure about this, okay. Just, tell me that again, and be...be....”  
  
“I like it when you touch me,” Sam repeated, soft but sure. “I always do.”  
  
The ringing in Dean’s ears could not possibly help him be sure that what he was hearing was  _really_ what he was hearing, much less  _understanding_ it right. “Yeah, but Sam, I—touch you a lot, right? Like, every day. Like this, now, and in bed—but that’s  _different_ , and do you mean like...like _that?_ ”  
  
Sam stared at him for a minute, and for a crazy moment Dean wondered if there were some curse over them, that they couldn’t even be sure of the meaning of a handful of words. Then Sam visibly gathered himself and said, low and clear and tight as an overwound watch, “I like when we kiss. When you t-t-touch me when we kiss. How you w-w-were t-touching me before I...b-before.”  
  
Suddenly, Dean was hyperaware of where they were—sitting on a rumpled queen-size bed, nothing between them but two sets of too-thin pajamas. He knew, even more clearly than a few minutes ago with Sam’s neck under his lips, exactly where this could go and how easily it would be to get there. This morning. Right fucking _now_. With Sam’s  _I like when you touch me_ still hanging in the air.  
  
“Gimme a minute, Sam,” Dean rasped, and made an effort to loosen his grasp on the bed.  
  
Sam was throwing up pretty clear “full speed ahead, I’m yours for the taking” signals (and  _fuck_ those thoughts were not helpful right now when he was trying to be clear-headed), and there were so many ways they could fuck this up. But then again, Dean had been in over his head since the day he’d taken Sam out of Freak Camp, yet somehow, miraculously, they had made it this far. Maybe that spoke to Dean’s good instincts, or Sam’s ability to survive goddamn anything, or maybe totally unexpected Winchester luck, but whatever it was, they were still here. And while Dean couldn’t do a damn thing to undo what Sam had gone through, maybe he could give back something that had been stripped away. And maybe making the attempt would be worth the potential fuck-up.  
  
When he looked up, Sam was watching him, his hands twining again in his lap. Dean slid his hands over them, and immediately Sam’s hands unfolded, turning to hold Dean’s.  
  
“Sam,” Dean said. “You know, I like it when you touch me, too. A lot, dude,” he added fervently, and watched color rise in Sam’s cheeks. “And it’s really important to me that you know...it’s okay, no, it’s really fucking  _awesome_ that you feel good too, when you touch me. That’s the most important thing to me, you get that, Sam?”  
  
Sam nodded slowly, eyes never leaving Dean’s.  
  
“And it’s just as important,” Dean continued, meeting that gaze, “that you know it’s  _okay_ to feel this way. That you like it just as much. And if you’re okay with me touching you, Sam, I’d like to...I really wanna show you how good it feels, that it’s okay for you and for me and...that it’s okay. ‘Cause that’s what matters to me, Sam, if we’re gonna be doing any...touching.”  
  
Sam drew in a shuddering breath, but never looked away. And then he nodded.  
  
“Yeah?” Dean said, his heart beating faster now. “You get it, Sam? I gotta know—”  
  
“Yeah, Dean,” Sam said, with a breathless hitch, and he leaned forward to kiss him on the lips.  
  
It was too easy to shift his grip from Sam’s hands to his shoulders, to pull him close, but Sam was already moving, rising onto his knees to meet him.  _Easy_ , Dean thought,  _easy, easy, Winchester_ —  
  
And then they did, miraculously, slow down, each long, deep kiss taking its time, savoring the nearness of each other. Sam’s fingers brushed Dean’s cheek, then slid behind his neck and down his back, a sweeping caress that made Dean groan against Sam’s mouth. He wanted now, more than ever before, to yank Sam to him, press chest-to-chest and groin-to-groin, rut against him as he felt Sam’s body react against his. But that wasn’t right. His only job was not to lose his fucking head (in every way, yeah). He just wished that didn’t seem so damn impossible.  
  
But he eased Sam back onto the bed, palms braced on his lower back. Sam broke off with a gasp, tensing, but Dean kept his weight braced off of him, slowing their kisses even more. He finished each one by looking into Sam’s eyes, touching their foreheads, just breathing with him. He could do this all day and nothing more, if that’s what Sam wanted. And he needed Sam to know that. Slowly, Sam’s eyes shut, head tilting to catch Dean’s mouth and kiss harder. He loved it every bit as much as Dean did, judging by the sounds he started to make deep in his throat, the good-whimpers, and how he started to twist to get closer, for  _more_. His leg nudged against Dean’s knee as his hands slid over Dean’s shoulders, tightening with a tug, like he wanted Dean down _now_.  
  
Dean shifted his weight so he could rest his fingers against Sam’s face as he kissed across the opposite cheek. “Oh, Sammy, baby,” he groaned, and rubbed his knee against Sam’s leg. Sam whimpered again, arching his throat, and Dean pressed his mouth to the smooth skin there to kiss and suck.  
  
Sam’s moan choked off abruptly, and Dean stopped, lifting his head to look Sam in the face.  
  
Sam was breathing hard, cheeks still flushed and pupils blown. “It’s okay, didn’t hurt. Just—” He swallowed. “Sensitive.”  
  
Dean nodded, tracing the line of Sam’s face with his fingertips before lowering his head to Sam’s neck again. This time, he savored the groans and gasps, Sam twisting frantically as he alternately dug his fingernails through Dean’s shirt and ran his hands down Dean’s back. Within a minute he was crying, “Dean, Dean, Dean,” and Dean thought, _fuck yes, that’s it_.  
  
He slid his hands down to touch Sam’s sides as Sam was touching him, stroking and caressing until he found the hem of Sam’s shirt. When he dipped his fingers underneath and made the first tentative contact with the bare skin above Sam’s hip, Sam’s back arched, and Dean jerked up just in time to keep from getting knocked on the jaw by Sam’s chin.  
  
It was a good time to check his face again, smile and kiss that swollen, panting mouth. “You okay, Sammy? You good, baby?”  
  
“Yes,” Sam said, and just as tentatively he slipped his hand under Dean’s shirt, to press against his abdomen. He met Dean’s eyes, and there was no fear or uncertainty there. “Yeah, Dean.”  
  
No fucking way Dean could doubt that. With a ragged breath, he leaned in to kiss Sam again, harder and deeper than before, and this time he let one knee dip between Sam’s legs to press against his inner thigh.  
  
Sam felt it, Dean knew, but it didn’t change the intensity of his kisses or his grip on Dean’s back. Instead he closed his legs around Dean’s knee, crossing his ankles over Dean’s calf as he arched up again, and oh  _fuck_.  
  
There wasn’t any point in holding back anymore. Dean settled slowly over Sam’s body, and for a moment they both froze, eyes locked on each other.  
  
Sam looked wrecked already, hands kneading bruises of want into Dean’s shoulders. He was unmistakably hard under Dean’s thigh, and that was the hottest fucking accomplishment of Dean’s life, but that had nothing to do with whether or not it was  _okay_.  
  
Dean lifted his hand once again to Sam’s cheek. “You okay, Sammy? You good?”  
  
Sam whimpered, and it wasn’t quite one of the good ones. “I don’t—” He swallowed and shut his eyes, shaking his head while Dean’s heart stuttered in his chest. “Don’t want you to stop,” Sam gasped at last. “I don’t know if it’s okay—with you, will you tell me? I can’t—”  
  
Dean kissed his mouth, just a light brush of lips. “It’s okay with me,” he said quietly. “Hell yes, it’s okay with me, Sam, but I gotta know you’re okay. Promise me you’ll say something, if it gets too much, if— _anything_ , okay? You can say—‘PG,’ y’know, to go back. That’s okay.”  
  
“Okay,” Sam said, a little breathlessly. “Don’t wanna stop, though.”  
  
“Okay.” Dean pushed his fingers through Sam’s hair, then slowly ground his thigh down between Sam’s. Sam’s mouth opened in a gorgeous ‘o,’ his head dropping back as his eyes fluttered closed, and Dean sucked in a breath. “That good, baby?”  
  
 _“Yes—”_  
  
“You can move, too, if you want,” Dean said, trying not to give away how much he hoped Sam would.  
  
And after a minute, Sam did, rocking his hips in hesitant, uneven jerks, his pants sounding half like sobs, pressing his face into Dean’s shoulder. His hands had stilled, dug tight into Dean’s shoulders, and Dean doubted that anything short of a superhuman force could have removed them.  
  
They could have both come like this, probably within a few minutes if Dean took over—fuck, they were just dry-humping in their fucking pajamas, but that was sex in all the ways that counted, close enough to make Dean’s head spin—but that wasn’t what Dean had in mind. With a massive effort, he stilled his hips, and Sam did a moment later, his head falling back as he blinked his wet-bright eyes open.  
  
“D-d-do you want to stop?”  
  
“No way, baby.” Dean stroked his knuckles along Sam’s cheek. “Just wanna—lemme see your hand, ‘kay?” Slowly, Sam released a shoulder and offered it, fingers trembling. Dean reached over, interlocking their fingers. “I wanna show you what I was talking about earlier. How to make you feel good.” He kissed the top of Sam’s knuckles, never breaking eye contact, and Sam nodded slowly.  
  
Dean kissed him again, long and deep, as he brought both their hands down between them to touch the hot curve of Sam’s cock beneath the thin fabric of his pajama pants.  
  
Sam shuddered, mouth going still, but Dean just stroked lightly, moving both their hands back and forth, his eyes half-open to watch Sam’s face. Slowly, Sam relaxed into the kiss, moaning and letting his hips rock against their hands. Then Dean dragged their hands back up to the flat of Sam’s abdomen, to slip under the waistband of his pajama pants.  
  
Sam stopped with a gasp, eyes flying wide open, and Dean’s eyes never left his face. Slow, slow, he brushed their knuckles over the head of Sam’s dick, hands gliding between pajamas and boxers, the skin beneath them so hot that Dean wanted nothing more than to grab that bare shaft and stroke it from base to tip, memorize the feel and look of it until Sam came apart underneath him.  
  
But he was going to do this fucking right, and right now Sam looked petrified. Even if Dean hadn’t known before that Sam had never, ever done this, he’d know now.  
  
“You wanna stop, Sam?” Dean asked quietly.  
  
“Dean—” Sam’s voice almost broke. But he swallowed and said, “I trust you.”  
  
“Just like I’m trusting you to tell me when it’s too much, right?” Dean kissed Sam again, just for a second before drawing their hands out. But he was only moving to grasp the sides of Sam’s pants, to tug them down over Sam’s hips. Sam drew a shaky breath, fisting his hands tight on the sheets, but still moving to help Dean get them off. Then Dean loosened Sam’s grip on the bed, wrapping his hand securely in his.  
  
“I got you, Sammy, remember? It’s gonna be okay, I swear.”  
  
Sam nodded, fractionally, and Dean laid both their hands over Sam’s cock, jutting against the boxers. It was a little awkward at first, until Dean let his fingers slip from between Sam’s so they could overlap instead. He traced the outline of Sam’s head and watched Sam gape and gasp, pupils enormous liquid pools.  
  
“You tell me, Sammy. Tell me if you wanna go any further.”  
  
Sam’s throat worked convulsively. “Yeah, Dean. Please.”  
  
Dean lifted him up by the hips, yanking Sam’s boxers down his thighs. He let himself look—just for a second, or it was supposed to be, because he  _had_ to stay focused on Sam every step of the way—because he couldn’t  _not_ look, not when he’d been fantasizing about this for way, way too many months.  
  
And fuck, yes. This was Sam’s cock, beautiful and hard for him, and Dean wanted to spend the morning memorizing the shape and feel of it, tasting it, seeing all the ways Sam would react when he did—but not yet. Not yet.  
  
“Fucking  _beautiful_ , Sammy.” Dean heard a ragged edge in his own voice, and he let himself stroke that gorgeous cock, feeling the smooth velvet skin beneath his hand.  
  
But Sam wasn’t moving his hand. He lay with his eyes closed, drawing in shuddering breaths, forehead knit like he was undergoing...nothing nearly as fun as sex should be.  _Fuck_.  
  
“Hey, Sammy, you with me?”  
  
Eyes flickering open, Sam nodded fractionally, with effort.  
  
“You’re doing great, all right? You’re so fucking hot—but I want you to try this, just try—move your hand like mine, all right? Here—” Dean started to move his hand over Sam’s, to guide him, but Sam flinched, shoulders stiffening as his eyes squeezed tight shut. “Okay.” Dean let go immediately, sliding his hand lower on the shaft, below Sam’s. “Okay, we’re not doing that. Just...follow me, if you can. I want you to—it’s gonna feel so good, Sammy. It’s okay for you, too, not just me.”  
  
After a minute, Sam started to imitate Dean’s slow, easy slide, and his breathing changed. He threw his head back, whimpering in a way that made Dean’s own dick ache and his breath catch, because it lay somewhere in the no-man’s land between bad and good.  
  
“You’re doing good, Sammy, swear to God you are. Never seen anyone as hot as you, baby.”  
  
Dean kept talking, reassurances and encouragement, watching Sam’s face as they found a rhythm. Sam shuddered and twisted, jerking his head from side to side as he alternately bit his lip and gasped. He wasn’t relaxing. The more they found their pace, the more frantic Sam became, the more he writhed like he was— _fighting_ it.  
  
If Dean hadn’t known the horror story behind Sam’s terror, he would have stopped, terrified that he was hurting him, that Sam wasn’t ready or didn’t want this. But now he  _knew_ why, and it wasn’t going to get easier if they stopped now, when Sam had said yes in every way he knew and every way Dean knew to ask.  
  
The next time Dean drew his hand up, he brushed his thumb across Sam’s wet head (fuck, he was so fucking hard, no wonder it looked like he was in pain), and Sam threw his head back with a cry, stopping his hand completely.  
  
“I can’t, Dean, I can’t—“  
  
“Yes. Yes, you can, Sammy, I swear you can. C’mon, baby, it’s gonna be okay.” Sam was listening to him, Dean could tell, despite how his body was fighting him. “You can, baby, I swear, I’m here, fuck I wanna see you come so bad...”  
  
That did it. Sam came brutally hard, his body an arched bow against Dean’s, mouth open in a soundless desperate scream. Dean kissed him then, hard, and felt Sam’s cock pulse hot and wet beneath their hands.  
  
Dean broke off only when Sam’s cock was soft, letting Sam gasp out shuddering breaths while he kissed the tear tracks beneath his eyes. Then he eased down beside him, wiping his hand on the sheets before smoothing Sam’s sweat-soaked hair back and pulling him close to his chest as Sam cried. They were quiet tears, to Dean’s vast relief, nothing like the ones after nightmares or panic attacks. But they still had a broken quality about them, like a dam that had finally given way.  
  
“You did good, Sammy,” Dean told him, over and over again, “just fucking amazing.” And he meant it, but he couldn’t make himself smile.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you are, at long last. Please remember that comments/reviews are the only reward we get, so we hope to hear as much from you as we do when you're asking when the next chapter will be. :)
> 
> This chapter is for Alice, our podficcer. <3 Also, many, many thanks and supreme adoration to quickreaver, for the breath-taking fanart.
> 
> Before starting, you might want to re-read Chapter Six of Part Two, as we refer to a lot of its events in this one, and because it provides a fascinating contrast to how much progress they've made in five months time, which I hadn't even been aware of until I re-read it.
> 
> Enjoy this one, folks. Next chapter, we're taking you back to Freak Camp.

Sex shock. While not anything medically diagnosable or covered in the stupid sex-ed classes he’d experienced in a handful of high schools, sex shock was totally a thing and definitely the best explanation Dean had for the Winchesters driving back into Boulder some five months after they’d left.  
  
Sex shock was an insidious sort of ailment. Ever since that first time they’d chucked the PG rule out the window, Sam had been subdued. He preferred to go with Dean even on short food runs, but also hung back more, leaning behind or against Dean rather than pushing himself to prove that he could talk to  _this_  waitress, too.  
  
And Dean hadn’t been at his best either. It was good, it was fucking  _fantastic_  every time Sam looked at him, touched him at night and said that he wanted, or moved just close enough that Dean felt okay putting his hand on Sam’s hip and feeling Sam’s breath catch and body shiver. Good, but weird too to see a Sam who was quieter, slower to respond to a joke or a smile, quicker to take Dean’s hand or offer to come with him to pick up their take-out. It made Dean feel even more protective than usual, which he might admit was saying something, and it didn’t help either of them when he twitched threateningly at anyone who moved too close or looked kinda funny their way.  
  
This wasn’t the same Sam who had terrified Dean before, the kid who had clung to Dean in white-knuckled terror. Sammy wasn’t scared, just… closer, quieter, like he was thinking something through very intently, figuring something out with that crazy big brain of his, and… it wasn’t bad. Some nights when they moved together, cautious, never going an inch further than Sammy wanted, it was so fucking good. And other nights, it was a relief just to lie there and hold each other like they used to, G-rated and nothing more.  
  
So, sex shock. It was a thing. And after more than one occasion when Dean got two inches from breaking bones on some asshole who dared to  _touch_  his car, or felt his hand jumping to his gun half-a-dozen times in a thrift store, or  _thought_  he saw a black truck pass out of the corner of his eye—Dean had to admit that maybe Sammy wasn’t the only one feeling the effects.  
  
The last straw was this shitty dive just outside of Little Rock. Okay, at first Dean had scoped it out as a fairly decent diner, and they’d sat down, just when a dumbass couple came in with their squalling infant who was  _way_  too small and red and screaming like someone… well, like something bad was happening to him. Screaming kids were enough to put anyone on edge, but babies especially made Sam jittery. It was hard to drink coffee watching Sam twitch and unfocus, and after the second time the waitress with the bulky black arm brace asked him for his order (but not in so many nice, tip-worthy words), Dean was seriously thinking of just dragging them out of there.  
  
Just when he was moving to give Sam the signal for them to bounce, she came back with a pot of coffee and a tired smile she focused exclusively on Dean, eyes sliding over Sam like he belonged on the short bus, someone that no one really wanted to look at because he’d add nothing to the conversation and weird them out.  
  
“Your order’s up,” she said, topping off Dean’s cup. “Johnny’s gonna bring it out.”  
  
“Not you?” Dean asked.  
  
“I’m not wearing this for the fashion statement,” she said, gesturing at the brace. “Fell down the stairs last week, doctor says I can’t carry that much.”  
  
Even across the table from him, Dean could feel Sam flinch. Maybe that excuse was standard anywhere there were two-story buildings. Dean eyed her. “You fell down the stairs?”  
  
She glared. “Yes, I did, and if you don’t need anything else I’m going to—”  
  
The crash of two laden trays hitting the diner floor brought all conversation in the crowded diner to a stuttered, abrupt halt, even briefly scaring the baby into silence, as all eyes turned. The skinny, beanpole kid in the middle of it all, presumably Johnny, stood with eggs over his clean white apron and a wash of pimples standing out over his embarrassed flush as he stared down at the broken plates and milk spreading over the floor and patrons’ feet.  
  
“Crap,” their waitress said, heartfelt and a little too loud.  
  
Conversation picked up quickly enough in the wake of the destruction, a couple idiots clapping or shouting, “Just set that anywhere!” and one elderly lady near the mess laboriously moving her chair back from the table and speaking to the kid quietly, maybe asking him if he could get a mop.  
  
Except Sam didn’t move, hadn’t even twitched since the great crash, just sat ramrod straight and stared hard and unblinking at the pancakes and eggs scattered over the floor.  
  
“Is that going in the t-trash?” he asked, without looking up.  
  
“Yeah,” their waitress replied, scowling and turning to him in surprise. “Unless you’re willing to eat it off the floor.”  
  
Sam recoiled as though she’d struck him full across the face, though his eyes locked on her face, transfixed.  
  
Dean lunged out of the booth, knocking the waitress bodily aside as he reached for Sam, hauling him out of the booth and outside. There, Sam finally started to breathe, deep, shaky lungfuls of the biting December air while he unzipped his hoodie and tugged his shirt away from his chest. Dean watched him helplessly as Sam paced, and thought about punching the wall. They’d been two fucking months without a panic attack and now  _this_ , all because of some miserable bitch of a waitress.  
  
“I don’t know why,” Sam croaked eventually, eyes glistening. “I don’t know why she s-said that, why she thought I—”  
  
Dean pulled Sam against his shoulder, where he relaxed, even as he started to sob. “It wasn’t you, Sammy,” he said, and hoped his voice didn’t sound as hollow to Sam’s ears as it did to his own. “She’s just a stupid, asshole bitch, she would have said it to anyone. She didn’t think anything, not about you.”  
  
Once the tears were rubbed away in the too-long sleeve of his hoodie, Sam said that they could go back in, but Dean made an executive, you-won’t-be-happy-if-I-punch-anyone-in-the-face decision and pulled them back to the Impala. Those assholes didn’t deserve their money, he told Sam, and he shot them the bird on the way out of the lot, just so they knew it too.  
  
With this new, quiet, more fragile Sam, Dean’s rage, and the fucking sex shock, it just made sense to hunker down somewhere when the weathermen started yammering about a huge storm set to roll through the Midwest. Dean had heard enough about “Storm of the century!” and “Batten down the hatches, folks, this is going to be a doozie!” not to want to put his baby through that at a sleazy motel.  
  
So he asked Sam how’d he feel about heading back to Boulder for a few weeks, just to lay low through the blizzard? And Sam nodded, leaning in to rest his head on Dean’s shoulder, and it was settled.  
  
Every reason made sense, in his gut if not always in his head, but for Dean, passing back into Colorado was like holding a match over a powder keg. He’d been leery of returning to this place, avoiding it in their sweeps across the Midwest and eastern states, but he couldn’t have laid his finger on why.  
  
Now, passing the neat, familiar houses on their way to the condo, near the grocery store where Sam had had his first panic attack and the park where he had been rendered catatonic because of an errant frisbee, the reasons solidified into something that Dean could touch, identify, and maybe curse. Yeah, sure, this time around Sam wasn’t plastered to the passenger seat door with his head down, hands locked on his thighs like he thought he might tumble out of the car. Dean’s palms weren’t sticky with a cold sweat on the steering wheel as he drove, without a goddamn  _clue_  as to what was going on or how to make it better. But Dean remembered all that so fucking clearly, could still feel the paralysis building in his throat—until he risked a glance toward the shotgun seat, and saw instead Sam sitting with one leg tucked underneath him, textbook and notebook open in his lap, but distracted by the scenery changing from mountain lanes into suburbs and strip malls as he absently tapped his pen under his chin.  
  
Dean let his breath out and consciously relaxed his hands. It was going to be okay. They were going to be okay, because they had come leaps and bounds from those two messed-up kids, and they knew how to deal now.  
  
“Hey, Sammy, what’s up?”  
  
Sam turned to him, a slight crinkle on his forehead. “You said that we’re going back to the same apartment from before?”  
  
“Yep.” Dean’s hands shifted on the wheel. “Same one.”  
  
“They just… kept it for you? We’ve been gone nearly six months. That’s… how does that work?”  
  
Dean grinned. It was a damn good thing for Sam to ask questions, good for him to be bold and not even stutter.  
  
“It’s part of the lease I signed,” he told him. “The apartment’s ours for a year, as long as I keep getting them the rent on time.”  
  
Sam bit his lip. “You’ve had it that long, do...does the ASC h-help with p-payments?”  
  
Dean knew what Sam was getting at. “I haven’t fucking given them anything,” Dean said firmly. “The lease’s under a different name, Johnson, and if anyone on the ASC bandwagon shows up, we’ll teach them to leave the Winchesters the hell alone.”  
  
Sam’s eyes went distant. “Sometimes the simplest lessons are hardest to...instill.” Before Dean could figure out what put  _that_  tone in his voice, Sam gasped, jerking upright in his seat. “Dean!”  
  
Dean almost ran the fucking Impala off the road before he saw what Sam was staring at.  
  
Though the sky was just edging into a purple-sunset twilight, one of the houses had already switched on their Christmas lights, and they were clearly going for the gold in one of those cheesy neighborhood decorating contests. Even though the Boulder temperate weather ensured that any snow that had fallen yet that December hadn’t stuck around, there was some white, woolly stuff spread over the lawn to make up for it, interspersed with life-sized plastic reindeer romping through the drifts, both pulling Santa’s sleigh and waiting attentively by the manger near a nativity scene, depending on the side of the yard that caught the eye. There was not an inch of plant life in the yard that had not been attacked by some sort of light-storm, glowing white in the branches and green around the trunks, and flashing red, white, and green in the bushes in some irregular pattern known only to the Christmas gremlins. The house itself was another thing, practically dripping with icicle lights from every eave (and a few things that the homeowners had only  _thought_ , or possibly hoped, were eaves), multicolored flashing lights around the windows and doors, miniature Christmas-tree lamps lining the sidewalk up to the front door, and a giant red-and-green HO HO HO spelled out across the roof in letters easily three feet tall.  
  
Dean was about to make a derisive comment about overcompensation when Sam turned to him, his mouth slack and eyes shining in wonder, and the words died on Dean’s lips.  
  
“Dean,” Sam breathed, looking between the house and him as they slowed down, as though he thought one of them would disappear if he kept his eyes off them for too long. “What  _is_  that?”  
  
“Well,” Dean said, “I guess that’s Christmas.”  
  
~  
  
After that first house, Sam saw others with strings of lights lining the edges of the house, or brightly colored lawn ornaments based on myths he had only read about. Though none of the new houses could match the riot of color, movement, and some indefinable  _joy_  that he had seen in that first one, Sam couldn’t tear his eyes away. What did it mean, really? He’d heard of Christmas, of course he had (mostly from Dean on those brief December visits when Sam had been allowed to huddle with him in one of the buildings, feeling warmth in his fingers sometimes for the first time in weeks), but he couldn’t really have said what it was.  
  
How were the decorations chosen? There were certain themes, icicles and patterns, but he didn’t know if they were designed to drive off evil, attract good, show off wealth for neighbors, or just because they were pretty. Were they just lights? Staring into the gathering night, searching for other homes lit as bright as the Freak Camp walls at night (but kinder, welcoming instead of a constant threat), Sam was so distracted by the details of the things, timing and cost, and how anyone whose bones would break like a normal human’s would ever be able to build snowmen on their roofs, that when Dean swung the Impala onto  _their_  street, a place he recognized even though he hadn’t seen it in five months, the surprise hit him like a bucket of cold water on one of those same December days.  
  
“Oh,” Sam said.  
  
Dean glanced at him, his expression uncharacteristically unreadable, but he clapped his hand on Sam’s knee before getting out of the car.  
  
Habit helped, the familiar patterns of the road that Sam found himself following without much conscious direction from his brain. He pulled his bag from the trunk and followed Dean up the stairs as though it were just another generic motel.  
  
The memories hit when Dean unlocked the door, when Sam stepped inside and saw the couch where he’d slept beneath Dean the night of the spilled peas, the table where they had shared their first pizza and he had tried not to think of eating the cardboard. Sam shuddered and dropped his bag in the doorway. Dean stopped, looked back at him. He raised his eyebrows, a good attempt at his usual quizzical humor, but the tightness of his mouth showed he wasn’t unaffected either. “You okay, Sammy?”  
  
Sam realized his hands were twisting together. He made himself let go, clenching them at his sides. “I just—I remember what I thought the last time I was here.” More specifically, the first time he had walked through that door, expecting so many things from Dean that he knew, now (in his head if not in his gut, sometimes), Dean had never had any intention of doing. Turning, he slapped hard at the light switch, flooding the living room with light. Sam moved quickly through the rest of the apartment, flipping on every light before returning to the living room where Dean stood, looking torn between worried and amused.  
  
“Double checking the breakers?”  
  
Sam looked him in the eye. “Is that a problem?” Though he meant to snap the words, to hold onto aggression rather than give in to any of the darker memories, the words still sounded timid, anxious to his ears.  
  
“Nah, it’s cool with me.” Dean forced a grin, and Sam made himself smile in response before picking his bag back up. Dean tilted his head back toward the master bedroom. “C’mon, let’s shake out these bags.”  
  
Sam let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, and followed Dean into their bedroom.  
  
~  
  
As glad as Sam was to be in the bedroom with Dean, preparing to share the single bed like they had in dozens of hotel rooms before, he knew they were both struggling in this place where they had started out. The memory of that first month lingered in the hitches of their evening routine, Sam fidgeting and fumbling at the closet, trying to decide where to put his bag, Dean walking in and out of the bathroom as he remembered and forgot items, both of them running into each other, bumping elbows at the dresser, touching often as though they were not sure, all over again, that the other would really be there in a few minutes.  
  
Finally getting into bed was a relief. This was a safe place, with Dean’s heat beside him, but still Sam could remember  _before_ , feeling petrified and ecstatic in this bed, the mix making him queasy even from the soft distance of memory. He didn’t want to remember those days, couldn’t; so, shivering, he pulled close to Dean, seeking him out with his hands in the dark. “Dean, Dean, Dean—”  
  
“Sammy,” he answered, voice hoarse, and his hands found Sam too, grip just a shade too tight to be casual on his hip, other arm wrapping over his shoulders to draw him in.  
  
They held each other in the dark, Sam still shivering with things he didn’t want to remember. He’d known nothing in those early days, had neither assurances nor confidence nor faith that Dean could (or would want to) keep him out of camp. It had been almost as bad as camp, he thought now—being in Dean’s arms without understanding anything of trust, being in Dean’s bed without understanding kindness or the kindness of reals, knowing nothing about how to trust Dean or how Dean might trust him to have his back, nothing about strawberries or the ocean.  
  
Sam didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to lose himself in all those old thoughts (how he’d seen himself, Dean, the world). He wanted  _Dean_ , the realness of him now, with Sam, knowing what he had been like and smiling every time Sam showed how far he had come.  
  
Gripping Dean’s shoulders, Sam lifted his mouth to find Dean’s.  
  
It had been terrifying, that first time Dean touched him. Bad enough to know that Dean knew a freak was getting hard from feeling Dean’s chest and hands on Sam’s body, Sam sucking every little sound and breath from Dean’s mouth through their desperate kisses like the most reckless incubus. Worse to have Dean think that he would have touched himself, would have gripped himself the way he’d handled guards, made those sounds and come when he wasn’t and never would be one of them.  
  
But he couldn’t have lied to Dean, couldn’t have said that he didn’t want to be touched by him when he wanted that more than anything.  
  
He’d wanted Dean to fuck him for years. Still did. But the feel of Dean’s hand on Sam’s cock, his body covering Sam’s, his voice murmuring praise and reassurance,  _that good, baby?_  and  _fucking beautiful, Sammy_  and  _you can you can you can_ , had been enough to break him down and make him writhe, to white out his mind like an electric shock set a little too high, to reduce him painlessly to mindless sobs.  
  
But it wasn’t just the pleasure, a science of nerve endings and stimulation (he had researched doggedly through anatomy and human sexuality texts in a library a couple days after that first night and before they had ever done it again, until he could understand that what had happened was a normal human reaction, even though if the books that he had searched had said nothing about freaks, and he had been afraid to be seen looking in those shelves). It was the touch of Dean’s palm on his cock, Dean’s words in his ears, Dean, Dean, Dean giving and trusting and kissing Sam’s tears away when he sobbed because there was nothing here that he understood.  
  
And he wanted that now, in this new place that had so many old, bad memories. He needed that closeness, to taste Dean on his tongue and know that he would be there in the morning.  
  
Dean reacted instantly to Sam’s lips, sucking in a breath and tightening his grip on Sam, wrapping their legs together as though afraid some whirlwind would pull them apart. They kissed hungrily, Sam’s tongue in Dean’s mouth and Dean’s in Sam’s, as mixed up and tangled together as their legs, bags, and lives.  
  
Then Dean groaned and broke off, gasping, hands flexing over Sam’s back. “Sammy, are you  _sure_ —”  
  
Sam heard anxiety in Dean’s voice, more than just his usual caution and triple-checking, a relic of the bad old days. In answer, he pushed Dean onto his back. He climbed on top and stretched out over him.  
  
Dean’s next groan, head tilted back, lit Sam’s nerves, a jolt of pleasure straight to the groin, where he never thought he could experience it, let alone control. This wild feeling, the slow burn that chased itself up and down his spine, his insides, was his to increase or decrease as he chose. He could say yes or no to what Dean did to him, and what they did together, and that was the headiest power of them all. But currently, Sam was very much interested in the  _increase_.  
  
Sam slid one leg between Dean’s, and found Dean’s cock, hard and hotter than the skin of his chest, and fit it beside his own. Now it was Sam’s turn to moan. He ground down and dropped his head to Dean’s ear. “Want you to touch me. Please, Dean.”  
  
Dean understood and didn’t hesitate. His hands slid down Sam’s back, fitting over Sam’s ass, and squeezed, pulling him down.  
  
Sam whimpered, holding on tight as they rode each other, the friction exquisite and perfect and safe, Dean whispering his name in his ear until they came. When they did, it was hard and sudden, Sam biting his lip to keep from sobbing out loud but maintaining the rhythm, hesitating barely a second in his pace (because Dean hadn’t come yet, he had to come) and Dean gasping after him a second later, moaning Sam’s name. When they collapsed, loose-limbed and sated, Dean rolled Sam sideways so they could kiss each other, run weakened fingers over arms and just hang on.  
  
Sam rolled off the bed a minute later, bringing back a wash cloth that Dean used to wipe them both down, and then, fit against each other once more, they dozed off, Sam counting Dean’s breaths until he was asleep himself, and the memories of that place were blown away in a flood of endorphins and the weight of Dean’s arms around him.

(by quickreaver)

~*~  
  
Being back in Boulder, with all those damn memories of panic attacks and a paralyzed Sam who was practically a stranger to him, would have been a hell of a lot harder if it hadn’t been for Christmas. Sam, as it soon became clear, fucking loved Christmas, starting with the decorations engulfing houses and buildings all over town like joyful, glow-in-the-dark fungi. Dean had no particular fondness for the trappings of the holiday (any extra cash was always bookmarked for ammo, not cheesy/girly decorations, even if they had been in one place long enough to make it practical), but he appreciated how as the lights flickered on at dusk, nothing about Boulder looked the same as in summer.  
  
They drove around several nearby ‘burbs on a few different nights, so Sam could see more of the decorations, and because it made an awesome end to Dean’s day to see his kid so goddamn  _elated_  by it all. When they got their first good view of someone’s decked-out Christmas tree, the blinds drawn obligingly for a full view from the street, Sam almost fell off his seat.  
  
“Dean—is that a  _tree?_  A real tree, inside their house? How—”  
  
“Yeah, it’s a Christmas tree. Everyone gets one, sometimes plastic, sometimes one they drag up from some shady tree-salesman, and they wrap it up in all kinds of shit, lights and balls and candy and photos of their great-aunt.”  
  
“Ooooh,” Sam said, and then pressed his face back to the window, head turning to follow the tree as Dean coasted slowly around the block.  
  
They saw houses that made that the first one look like amateur hour; they saw the work of professionals with finesse and a certain degree of class, and houses decorated by people who, like Sam, just fucking loved bright, colorful lights and lots of them. Every block, Sam found another marvel, practically bouncing in his seat, pressing his gloved hands to the glass and saying,  _Dean, Dean, look!_  It was like his kid had lost ten years (and had never heard of FREACS), all at once, and Dean was having a hard time holding back his grin.  
  
“Have you seen anything like that, Dean?” Sam asked, and Dean could say honestly that he hadn’t, ever, because he really hadn’t looked at Christmas lights the way he was tonight.  
  
As they pulled back onto their street, Sam leaned forward with another gasp. “The people two doors down from us—they’ve got lights in their windows! They look like a, a cane—”  
  
“Yeah, a candy cane,” Dean said, making a note to get a box of those tomorrow.  
  
“And a little man, like those in the other yard—a gingerbread man? And I see a tree through their window, too. Dean—” Sam turned back to him, his face nearly as aglow as the lights behind him. “Dean, can we put up lights too?”  
  
Dean hesitated, a second too long, and Sam’s smile faded. He looked down, visibly packing down his excitement, and Dean mentally called himself the biggest asshole on the planet. “Dude, ‘course we can. We’ll go raid the corner store and get all the lights you want.”  
  
“We don’t have to,” Sam said, addressing the leather seat between them. “It was just an idea, it’s o-okay if we don’t—”  
  
“Hey.” Dean put his hand over Sam’s, and Sam looked up. “I want to decorate our apartment with you, okay? It’s just that I—it was never a big thing with… I haven’t done it for a while. But look, this is us, and it’s our damn Christmas, and we can do what we want. And I say let’s make our apartment look like a fucking 4th of July light show.”  
  
The next day, they raided the hell out of the dollar store, coming away with armloads of lights, ornaments, wrapping paper, ribbons, candles, tinsel, and some stuff Dean couldn’t even identify, but Sam had gotten really excited over it, so that was good enough for him.  
  
They didn’t get to bed until after midnight, when the first frenzy of decorating finally subsided. Dean couldn’t believe how much fun he actually had. Figuring out how to pin blinking colored lights around the window was kind of like sprinkling salt or laying a devil’s trap; there was a general layout for how it should be done, but room to improvise. They scattered bunches of pine cones and holly over the TV, fridge, coffee table, breakfast bar, and even on the shelves inside the closets. They strung garlands around every doorway as carefully as they would lay salt lines, and Dean stuck a little bundle of mistletoe in the center of the kitchen doorway. Whatever Dean had thought at the start about how he was doing this for Sam, after the first round of lights, he was planning aloud everything they’d do tomorrow, including getting a big-ass tree so they would have someplace to throw the rest of the lights and tinsel.  
  
But that night, long after Sam’s breathing had slowed into sleep where he was curled to Dean’s side, Dean’s brain would not shut up; his mind would not stop replaying the last twenty-four hours with Sam, combing through and examining each moment, and then rewinding to Christmases past. He’d never really liked the holiday; he’d bashed it in every school he’d ever attended and backed that opinion up with his fist when someone made a big deal about it. He’d hated it, sometimes, because Christmas was about family. And Winchesters like him and his father were never going to have again what he could barely remember: a warm bright home, with  _Mom_  there, lifting him up so he could set ornaments on their tree. He hadn’t had a tree since Lawrence.  
  
Christmas memories of Mom still hurt, in the way it hurt to blink away after-images of something better that you’ll never have again. In the Christmases after, Dad had been there, usually, and when he was, there was eggnog or hot chocolate, take-out, and a badly-wrapped present that was still from  _Dad_. He’d gotten his first crossbow on Christmas. Dad had smiled more then, mellowed by his Christmas bourbon, unless he’d had enough to stare out a window, or turning his drink as though he could see  _her_  in the bottom of the class. After he passed out (always before midnight, usually on the bed or sofa), there hadn’t been much to do but finish off the nog and try to find an action marathon on TV. Dean would be damned if he’d watch those fucking  _stupid_  Christmas specials about family coming home).  
  
A year ago, he’d spent Christmas with John.  
  
Dean took a shuddering breath, tightened his arm around Sam (careful, careful not to wake him) and turned toward him. He had Sammy now. He hadn’t, a year ago. A year ago, Sam had still been in Freak Camp, living through a hell of which Dean was only now starting to get a clear picture, and now he was secure in Dean’s arms and Dean could not, even for a fucking second, regret the trade-off. Never. He had Sam now, safe with him, and Dean was going to give him his first fucking Christmas,  _their_  first fucking Christmas, and it was going to be goddamn awesome. The best Christmas ever. That was a promise. And Sam never had to know if Dean’s eyes and throat burned now, thinking about past Christmas ghosts as he took shaky breaths against Sam’s hair, breathing him in.  
  
~*~  
  
Going into town the next day, during daylight hours, was not quite as much fun as cruising around the suburbs at night. Sam’s eyes were just as wide as they had been the night before, but quiet apprehension had mostly replaced excitement.  
  
“I don’t remember there being as many people, last time,” he said, glancing back toward Dean.  
  
Dean grimaced. “Yeah, welcome to holiday hell week.” At least all the public squares were decorated with lots of wreaths and ribbons, not to mention the giant-size and impeccably decked-out Christmas trees. Dean hoped that the glitz and glam would be enough to distract Sam from the crowds and their destination. They could pick up a Christmas tree at any of the big hardware stores and probably some farms outside the city, but most everything else they’d talked about last night required a stop at the grocery store.  
  
Dean paused after killing the engine, parked on the outer edge of the lot. He glanced at Sam, trying to keep it casual. After all, they’d been in grocery stores across the country by now. Sam might not even remember the first time he’d seen this one.  
  
Though, honestly, Dean wouldn’t have bet his third-hand boots on the chances of Sam not remembering his first-ever panic attack.  
  
But Sam was peering toward a fenced area next to the store where huddled treetops were just barely visible over the top. “Are those Christmas trees?” A thread of excitement had crept back into his voice.  
  
Dean relaxed, letting himself grin. “Oh yeah. C’mon, let’s go pick out the baddest mother of the bunch.”  
  
Their breath steamed in the cold, and Dean caught Sam’s gloved fingers in his as they weaved through the parking lot toward the trees.  
  
Once they were between the trunks, they took their time walking around. Sam brushed his fingers over the needles, examined the sap on the trunks. “They’re real trees.”  
  
Dean didn’t miss the revelation in his voice. He remembered the trees they had seen driving through the mountains, their roots dug so deep into the rock that they could spread their gnarled branches over the abyss. It was hard to think that these could be the same thing, even if these were fresh (and local) enough to still have snow on their branches. “Yeah. Some people get fake ones, but I figured we’d go for the real deal, y’know?”  
  
He was totally unprepared for Sam’s smile, flashing at him wide and true and brilliant. He could almost  _see_  Sam thinking of strawberries and the best pie in the state, of every time Dean had tried to get him  _the real deal_. His cheeks flushed below his beanie, his lips a little dry in the cold, just like Dean’s. Dean would have to grab some chapstick for them before they blew out of the store, but for now he settled for tugging Sam closer, resting his thumb beneath Sam’s jaw. Sam angled his mouth to meet his.  
  
The kiss warmed him through like a shot of scotch, though far sweeter. Dean forgot about the trees, the grocery store, all but Sam here before him, holding onto his shoulder.  
  
When they broke apart, Sam’s face was even more flushed, his eyes brighter, his wet swollen lips making Dean want nothing but to pull him into the backseat of the car, and better yet back to the apartment. He had to glance away, just to get control, even as his arm tightened around Sam’s waist. “So, uh. You got a preference for these Douglas firs?”  
  
Sam considered, tilting his head to touch Dean’s shoulder. “How long will they stay alive in our apartment?”  
  
Dean shrugged. “I dunno, probably through New Year’s at least.”  
  
Sam turned to him, surprised. “You don’t remember with ones you had before?”  
  
Dean huffed out a short laugh. “Yeah, motel rooms weren’t the best places to go all out on the Christmas-tree-fu. Not much room to cart around a fake one in the Impala, either. ”  
  
“Oh.” Sam frowned, and Dean knew without a doubt that his genius brain was working out the rest. “You… don’t mind having one this year, though?”  
  
“Hell nah.” Dean squeezed his hand. “Never had an apartment before, right? It’ll be awesome.”  
  
On the last syllable of  _awesome_ , like that was some goddamn cue, a motor coughed to life, starting low and rising rapidly to a dentist-drill-pitched whine. Sam flinched away, hard, almost unbalancing Dean, and just barely stopped himself from pressing his hands to his ears. Dean swore, pressing his own hands to Sam’s ears, looking for the threat, or maybe someone’s head to take off.  
  
Some son of a bitch had a motherfucking chainsaw, using it to daintily prune one of the Christmas trees presumably for the family standing just out of woodchip range, and Dean was going to throw that fucking thing into a goddamn lake as soon as he could step away from Sam. Chainsaws had no fucking place in Christmas, unless it was some cheesy horror film that he would  _not_  be seeing this year.  
  
As soon as the motor died away, Dean dropped his hands to Sam’s shoulders, and Sam lifted his head, though his eyes were distant and his breathing uneven. “Hey, Sammy. Sammy.” After a moment, Sam met his eyes, though they were so wide and bleak that Dean had to swallow. “Look, they’re just using a saw to trim the trees, that’s all that’s going on.” Sam followed his gaze to the tent, the family, the guy in the earmuff chatting amiably to one of the boys who seemed critical of his chop-job, but Sam didn’t look much comforted. “Why don’t you hang out in the car, listen to some Led Zep, while I get one wrapped up?”  
  
For a moment, Dean thought Sam was going to protest; then the chainsaw motor gunned again, and Sam flinched. He nodded, and Dean led him out of the tree lot, back to the Impala.  
  
Twenty minutes later, they had their tree strapped to his baby’s black top (fucking ridiculous looking), and Dean slid back into the driver’s seat. Sam was slouched against the shotgun door, more subdued than he had been since they arrived in Boulder. Dean reached for his hand, rubbing his thumb over Sam’s knuckles.  
  
“There’s some stuff I gotta grab inside the store—how about you hang here, guard the tree while I’m gone?”  
  
But Sam roused himself to shake his head, sitting up straight. “No, I want to come with you.” He met Dean’s eye, jaw square and determined in a way Dean had come to fucking love these last couple of months, and he knew Sam was making a point. Sam remembered the store, remembered the panic attack from last time, and wasn’t going to let that memory or even fucking chainsaws hold him back.  
  
Dean was proud as hell of him, but he wished Sam didn’t have to be so stubborn this time. Waltzing into this grocery store wouldn’t have been a blast under the best of circumstances, and now factoring in ugly loud noises and motorized weaponry—  
  
“I want to go, Dean,” Sam repeated, and this tone was new: insistence mixed with impatience and downright _annoyance_ , like he knew exactly what Dean was thinking and he was tired of waiting to prove him wrong.  
  
Dean’s heart did a funny flip, something sparked lower in his gut, and he almost pulled Sam in for another kiss before he could stop himself. Didn’t stop the grin, though. “Okay, okay, you got it. Let’s go.”  
  
And sure enough, just like always, Sam was right. He was fine, though he hung close to Dean the whole time, taking his hand shortly after they entered. But he got interested in some of the Christmasy displays, and Dean made a tight circuit to keep to their list.  
  
When they stepped back out into the cold air, Dean didn’t miss the small, triumphant smile on Sam’s face. As soon as they’d stored the bags into the trunk, he caught Sam by the wrist. “Hey.”  
  
Sam looked at him, his smile picking up curiosity around the edges, and Dean drew him in, angling his head to kiss that smile. Sam made a sound that was both surprised and pleased before kissing Dean back with energy. His hands slipped inside Dean’s jacket, along his sides, and Dean’s grip on Sam tightened.  
  
 _Aw, fuck_. Dean knew where this was going, and it was not particularly appropriate for a mid-afternoon parking lot. He wanted to get Sam home and laid out on the sofa, if not the bed. Tonight, it would definitely be the bed. He pulled away reluctantly, and immediately regretted even that distance. Sam’s eyes were half-closed, and he leaned after Dean’s lips like he hadn’t been ready to stop anytime soon. Dean stroked his thumb down Sam’s face, a promise for later, before stepping back.  
  
“Wanna circle downtown, see how it’s decked out with jolly holly, before we hit the apartment?”  
  
Sam’s slight flush hadn’t fully subsided from the kiss and the cold, but this time his smile practically beamed. “Sure.”  
  
They drove down Pearl Street to circle the park, heading toward the first library they had visited (Dean got a tingle of déjà-vu, remembering the look on Sam’s face the first time he heard his last name), but Sam made a sudden noise and pressed against the window, staring as they passed another block of shops.  
  
“Dean—is that the bagel shop?”  
  
Slowing, Dean craned his neck to see out Sam’s window, through the fogged-up glass, and then glanced the other way, toward the park clearing and presumably the disastrous in-ground amphitheater. “Yeah, must be the same one.”  
  
Sam fell silent, but continued staring out the window. Dean wondered what he was thinking. That day still felt like a god-awful nightmare to Dean. Maybe when he was reminded of how bad it could still be, how the sound of a chainsaw made Sam freeze up, he should remember too when strangers talking to Sam at all had rendered him catatonic, how he had sobbed when touched by anyone other than Dean, and had no idea what to do with a hug.  
  
Then again, maybe he shouldn’t, because the very thought made Dean’s fingers twitch and flex on the wheel.  
  
“They were nice,” Sam said at last, turning from the window. “I wonder if they…”  
  
“You wanna make a stop?”  
  
Sam hesitated. “Do you want to?”  
  
“Sure.” Dean swung the Impala into the closest empty space. “I’m pretty sure those were the best bagels we’ve had in twenty states.”

At first glance, Moe’s Broadway Bagels didn’t seem any different from the other coffee shops and bakeries they’d hit across the country, besides the holiday stickers dotting the glass display of bagels. A young guy took orders from the crowd of students (either feverishly laboring over books and laptops or talking with friends, headphones around their necks) and an older crowd gossiping in larger groups. Sam and Dean ordered hot chocolate and a bag of bagels before squeezing through to a small table against the back wall.  
  
Then a heavyset woman with her hair wrapped in a donut-decorated bandana emerged from the kitchen to survey the store. Dean recognized her as Janet, the owner who had given them a ride back to their apartment on their incredibly shitty first outing to the park. He glanced at Sam, who was watching her furtively over the top of his hot chocolate.  
  
Janet made a round of the room, backslapping regulars and making cheerful inquiries of those she didn’t know as well. She reached the end of one row of small tables, started to swing back toward the front—then stopped and turned. As she stepped forward, Dean sat up straighter, and Sam did the same.  
  
“Now I’ve seen you boys in here before,” Janet said, scrutinizing them with narrowed eyes. “Either that, or I’m getting handsome déjà-vu.”  
  
Dean opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Sam stood up and stepped in front of the table.  
  
“I don’t think we actually met last time,” he said, rapid but clear, without so much as a trace of a stammer. “I’m Sam Winchester.” He held out his hand.  
  
Janet’s mouth fell open, and she stared between him and Dean before bursting into a roar of laughter, clapping her hands once, then moving forward to squeeze Sam in a tight hug. Dean jumped to his feet, but Janet released Sam a moment later. His face was bright red, but he was grinning wide, even though several conversations had stopped and more than one customer was looking in their direction.  
  
“Which makes this Dean,” Janet exclaimed, and a second later Dean found himself folded in a breath-stealing grip that actually lifted him off his feet. Then she set him back down to look at both of them, beaming. “Well, I’ll be damned! Maryann and I were sure we had run you out of town.”  
  
“Nah, we’ve been on the road for a while,” Dean told her. “The bagels brought us back.”  
  
“Damn straight they brought you home, and right in time for the holidays.” Janet couldn’t have been more pleased if they’d brought her pie. “Well, traveling seems to have done you a world of good. Just wait until I call Maryann and tell her who came ‘round to say hi. Come back for breakfast on Saturday, she’ll want to see you herself. Oh, you hang on a sec, don’t move.” She wheeled around and strode across her shop, through the door behind the counter.  
  
Sam and Dean exchanged a look, but they didn’t have to wait long before Janet reappeared, holding two circular metal tins, each wrapped in colorful ribbon and topped with a large bow. She presented them with a flourish. “Happy holidays!”  
  
“But,” Sam said hesitantly, even as he took a tin, “we were only here once, and then you gave us—”  
  
Janet waved a hand. “You’ve already got your bag of bagels, and I know you’ll be in enough from now on to make up for it.” She winked at them. “It’s awfully good to see you boys again. You got holiday plans? You shouldn’t miss the Christmas Eve show in the downtown square, they always have great Christmas carols and there’s free cider and hot chocolate to keep your bones warm.” She gestured toward the community bulletin board near the front door. “Grab a flyer over there if you want, they handed me about a hundred and I promised I’d get rid of them.”  
  
“We’ll check it out,” Dean said, and he meant it. He’d have had to be blind to miss the way Sam’s eyes lit up at the description.  
  
“Thank you,” Sam said, and lifted his tin. “And for this too.”  
  
“Don’t mention it! It’s Christmas, after all.” She shook their hands, still beaming, before turning back to the other patrons.  
  
Dean and Sam slowly sat back down, Sam staring at his Christmas tin as though it might break if he looked away. “What is it?”  
  
Dean rattled his by his ear. “Cookies, I’ll bet. Go ahead and open it.”  
  
Sam looked up, surprised. “Don’t presents go under the tree?”  
  
That stopped Dean mid-rattle. Yeah, they had a giant, honest-to-God Christmas tree strapped on the Impala right now, but he hadn’t really thought about the whole present-stacking ordeal that usually came after the decorating. It had always seemed vaguely repellant to him. Un-spiked eggnog, tinsel, and presents under the tree were something that families did when they had matching Christmas sweaters and no nightmares about full moons and Novembers. He’d been planning on getting Sam a bunch of gifts (there were so many things he wanted to get his kid, even if he had to drive a couple towns out and hustle some maudlin, drunken assholes to get enough cash for it all), but he’d figured he’d just pull them out of the shopping bags on Christmas Day, the way he and his dad had in years when they had enough cash for presents.  
  
But fuck, this was  _Sam’s_  Christmas, not John’s, and Sam was a Winchester too. If anyone deserved a Christmas done right, Sam did.  
  
“Sure,” Dean said at last, “if you want to do it that way, but they’ll probably taste better if you eat them sooner. Besides, they’ll be pretty lonely under there, unless you’re up for some serious shopping. Christmas crowds are a real bitch, you know, these parents get all wild-eyed if you get between them and the last Tickle Me Elmo.”  
  
Sam’s mouth quirked in a grin, wry and confident—one of the fucking hottest varieties, in Dean’s opinion. “Well,” Sam said, with mock thoughtfulness, “if we were quick enough on our feet to take down a half-dozen spider-monsters and things, we might stand a chance.” The grin faded slightly. “There won’t be chainsaws in  _every_  store, will there?”  
  
“Nah, just the hardware stores, and we’ll steer clear of those.”  
  
They grinned at each other, and Sam leaned in closer. “What would you like for Christmas?”  
  
“Aw, Sammy, you don’t have to get me anything. I mean, you know what I like. M&Ms, pie, you by my side, I’m a happy man.”  
  
Sam frowned. “But you get those all the time. That’s not enough for Christmas. What do you usually get?”  
  
And Dean had to laugh, even as he cut his gaze away. Ammo, half a bottle of bourbon, and his dad’s arm around him as they stumbled, trashed, out of the bar at closing, followed by a greasy diner breakfast in the dreary light of dawn, across from the man who had been his whole world since he was four, with absolutely no idea that it was the last time—yeah, that was what he’d gotten last year, and it was nothing Sam needed to know about.  
  
Sam took a careful breath. “Okay, well—what do you want for our Christmas?”  
  
“Seriously, Sam—okay, look. There’s that outdoorsy backpacking store close to here, right? Bet they sell those nice double-lined fleece socks that feel fucking awesome. You can get me some of those, how’s that.”  
  
Sam stared at him, then at Dean’s well-worn, scuffed boots, which maybe had the sole peeling away on one side, but they were still solid and comfortable as hell. “You want socks?”  
  
“Yep. Socks and you on Christmas morning, I’ll have everything I need.”  
  
Sam studied him. “Are you getting me socks for Christmas?”  
  
Dean snorted. “C’mon, Sam, you don’t think you need a pair of the awesome socks, too?”  
  
“But is that  _all_  you’re getting me?”  
  
Dean shrugged defensively. “There may be a couple other things, sure. I’m playing catch-up, right, for all the Christmases we’ve missed. It’s only fair.”  
  
“No, it’s not fair,” Sam returned hotly. “I didn’t get you anything for earlier Christmases, either. It’s not fair unless we give each other an equal number of presents.”  
  
“Fine, fine.” Dean held up his hands in surrender. “Let’s call it even at three, all right? Three presents each. That can be three pairs of socks, three kisses, whatever you want.”  
  
Sam sat back and smiled like the Cheshire cat. “I already got you something.”  
  
Dean’s brow furrowed. “You did? When?”  
  
“A few weeks ago.”  
  
Dean eyed him before draining the last of his hot chocolate. “Figures you’d have a head start with this, too. You ready to jet? We’ve got a Christmas tree to plant in our living room.”  
  
It turned out that Christmas trees were a hell of a lot harder to set up than happy families on TV made it look. Dean had gotten a stand, but there were screws involved, and Sam ended up holding the tree in position way longer than he should have had to, while Dean dropped the screwdriver and got pine needles in his eye. But after the hard part came decorating, and once again Sam’s delight with the colored lights and balls was pretty damn infectious. Decorating at least was a hell of a lot easier, piles of colored lights going up with the pretty pseudo-glass and glitter ornaments as bright as Sam’s smile, and Dean’s lingering sap-induced agony was nothing compared to that. They followed their labor with Chinese from the shop around the corner, and Dean broke open (not literally, though he had to use his pocket knife on the screw-top seal because that mother was screwed on  _tight_ ) the bottle of eggnog he had picked up from the grocery store.  
  
Afterward, Sam sprawled on the couch, glass of eggnog resting on his chest as he watched the flashing Christmas lights with beatific pride. Dean stirred a couple bourbon shots into his own glass, then brought both the glass and the bottle over. He sat down carefully by Sam’s head and lifted the bottle where Sam could see.  
  
“Want a shot in yours? Half a shot? It mixes real nice.” Sam was kind of young, but Dean had been barely in double digits the first time he’d had his eggnog spiked, and they weren’t going anywhere.  
  
Sam’s hands tightened around his glass, and he shook his head firmly. Dean set the bottle down and settled back against the armrest, his free hand resting over Sam’s shoulder. The tree  _was_  kinda pretty, he admitted, and the softly flashing lights were a little mesmerizing. Putting him to sleep, almost.  
  
Sam’s fingers emerged from the too-long cuff of his red sweater to twine with Dean’s. Dean kind of fucking loved this sweater. He’d picked it up at Goodwill just a couple days before, and it was a damn lucky find: really nice material, super-soft and half-drowning Sam, but the kid loved it, wore it under his coat when they went out, and around the apartment, too.  
  
Sam seemed to have slid closer to Dean, the crown of his head resting against Dean’s thigh, and he was watching Dean instead of the lights now, still wearing the same warm, content smile. Dean was the only one with spiked nog, but Sam was getting cuddly, warm and flushed in the way Dean never saw except when his kid had a handful of painkillers in his system. He’d never known how much better it was when Sam looked at him that way without having almost died first.  
  
Dean moved both their hands close to Sam’s face, so he could rub his thumb along Sam’s cheek. Sam’s eyes fluttered shut before he half-opened them and turned his head to catch Dean’s thumb with his lips. Dean nearly stopped breathing, almost afraid (though that wasn’t the right word either, and nervous was so far from enough), and Sam watched, no breath passing his lips to touch Dean’s skin.  
  
Sam moved first, sitting up and pushing his glass onto the table, next to the bottle of bourbon. He pressed close to Dean’s side, one arm slipping around Dean’s shoulders, the other around his side. “I like Christmas,” he breathed against Dean’s neck.  
  
Dean swallowed, adjusting his suddenly slippery grip on his glass as he worked his other arm around Sam’s back. “Me too. Now, I mean. Never was this cool before. Guess I just didn’t really get it, what it could be like, you know?”  
  
Sam pressed his lips to the juncture of Dean’s neck and collarbone, and Dean dragged in a shaky breath, tried to focus on the softness of Sam’s sweater, the adorable way Sam had to twist his wrist to work his hand free from the sweater, right before he slipped it up Dean’s shirt.  
  
Dean’s body jolted. “Whoa, Sammy,” he said, and Sam turned his face up to him. There’d been no bourbon in his glass, which meant that the heat in his eyes was something else entirely.  
  
“Is this okay?” Sam asked, in a half-whisper. “Is it okay if I touch you, Dean, because I really like to. I love your skin. It’s my favorite thing. You’re always so warm.”  
  
Dean was having trouble stringing together an appropriate response, something that wasn’t the first response of the bourbon and his dick and contained more than a way to tell Sam  _hell fucking yes_. Okay, so what he needed was a  _hell fucking yes_  that would convey, with subtlety and clarity and all that good shit, that he wanted what Sam wanted, as long as Sam was sure, and that he didn’t want to mess up what they had right now, with the tree and the lights and the whole of beautiful fucking Christmas.  
  
That’s what he needed. What he said instead was, “Auuuuuugh,” head dropping back, and somehow Sam understood, smile broadening before he dipped his head, this time to kiss Dean’s neck deliberately.  
  
Holy fucking  _Christ_. This was Sam, his once-terrified kid who still flinched at sudden movement or couldn’t meet Dean’s eyes, kissing and licking and sucking with increasing confidence and (if Dean dared to name it) desire, and Dean couldn’t even recognize the sounds coming out of his own mouth, incoherent babble and noises and _oh Sammy, oh my fucking God, Sammy_. He didn’t think he'd ever made them before, not with anyone else. Sam didn’t let up, working his way down Dean’s neck, biting with a passion Dean had never seen before, claiming him, leaving livid, unmistakable marks that anyone would be able to see over his shirt the next day and Dean _wanted_  them seen, wanted to stand on a mountaintop, an airport, a mall (fuck, no, that would suck, for both of them, say a beach before the ocean) and scream— _oh Jesus fuck Sammy_.  
  
Sam’s hands roamed his chest, sliding sure over his skin, like he knew that Dean belonged to him, and Dean had never experienced anything half as hot as this, to be laid out for Sam’s taking. Then Sam’s slender fingers brushed over the waistband of his jeans, to rest over Dean’s cock where it was  _right there_ , impossible to miss.  
  
Dean drew in a sharp breath, and Sam released his neck to meet his eyes. Sam’s own were blown with desire, reined in by the thinnest trace of hesitation, and Dean wanted to kiss it away right the hell now.  
  
“Dean,” Sam said, and swallowed. His palm slid over the head of Dean’s cock, and Dean barely held back a groan. “Dean, can I—I want to, to touch you.”  
  
“ _Fuck_ , Sam—yes, fuck yes.”  
  
Sam undid Dean’s jeans and zipper with one hand and drew his cock out with a light, almost reverential touch. This was the first fucking time Sam’s fingers had wrapped around Dean’s dick, the first fucking time for something Dean had fantasized about for longer than he wanted to admit, and it was a fucking wonder he didn’t come right then, faster than the time Shelly Gardiner in tenth grade had slid a condom down him using just her mouth.  
  
But Sam’s grip firmed when he had Dean in hand, and Dean looked up to his face, and the look there—breathless and awed, lips parted and cheeks flushed—made Dean’s dick twitch and grow even stiffer in Sam’s hand. Sam’s breath caught, and then he turned his head to kiss Dean, slow and deep, as he started to stroke.  
  
Dean’s left hand found the back of Sam’s neck, his other hand planted over Sam’s thigh. At first he tried not to move at all, afraid of throwing Sam off, but Sam jacked him at a steady, almost leisurely pace, except for the twist he added every few strokes. Soon Dean was rocking into his hand, moans muffled in Sam’s mouth. He had been a few breaths away from blowing his load from the moment Sam’s hand touched his jeans, but then Sam’s other hand found Dean’s neck, tightening to match Dean’s hand on his neck, a squeeze that said,  _yes I’m yours you’re mine_ , and Dean’s climax slammed into him without warning, his body stiffening and arching as he let out a shout that began wordless and ended in “ _Sam_.”  
  
Sam kept a firm, warm grip until Dean’s cock was limp in his hand, and then he opened his eyes. Dean was still panting for breath, and for a moment he wasn’t able to inhale, until Sam smiled at him, just as warm and happy as before, but unmistakably  _proud_  now too. Self-satisfied, in fact, as a cat who’d gotten into the cream… and Dean wasn’t sure it was possible to get it up again this fast, but if he kept thinking along those lines, he might manage it. Instead, Dean kissed him again before twisting around to grab the tissue box on the table beside the couch, wiped himself and Sam’s hand, and lowered him back toward the other end of the couch.  
  
Sam looked surprised as Dean worked the red sweater off and then settled on top of him, bracketing Sam’s legs with his knees and Sam’s shoulders with his elbows, hands buried in his hair. Then Dean kissed him, long and deep, sucking at Sam’s tongue until Sam was moaning and arching underneath him, abandoning the last of his hesitation and worry, which was Dean’s principal goal every time. Well, that and getting Sam off with the only tension in him the kind that comes right before a mind-blowing orgasm and actually  _smiling_  through it.  
  
Sam was hard already, had been before Dean laid him down, Dean could feel his erection grinding against him every time Sam rolled his hips. Sliding a hand to the bare skin right above Sam’s waistband, Dean pulled away from Sam’s lips just enough to breathe, “Wanna touch you, make you feel so good too, baby.”  
  
“ _Yes_ ,” Sam gasped, and if there was a kind of anguish in his voice, it wasn’t the kind that had a sob hitched to it. Not this time. “Yes, yes, Dean, please.”  
  
Dean kissed him again as he worked on Sam’s belt and jeans’ button and zipper, finally sitting up enough to tug his jeans and boxers off with both hands. Sam helped kick them off, then settled back on the cushions. His face was very flushed, but his eyes were steady on Dean’s face, and his hands lay loose by his sides.  
  
Very, very careful as he eased back down, Dean placed one hand over Sam’s cock. Sam still whimpered, but it was a good,  _needy_  sound, anticipating pleasure, not fear; his arms wound around Dean’s shoulders.  
  
“Dean, Dean, please…”  
  
Dean shushed him, kissing his mouth. “Yeah, baby, don’t worry, I gotcha. Gonna take good care of you.” He stroked Sam, gentle and easy at first, to ease him into it, but Sam still whimpered and buried his head against Dean’s shoulder, his fingers digging in tight. Dean slowed to a pause, shushing soothing nothings into Sam’s ear until he breathed easier, though his eyes were still very bright. Dean kissed him—light, barely more than a touch of his lips—over each eyelid, and then a longer one on the mouth. Sam was calmer, but still so fucking hard in Dean’s hand as he started to pump his fist again.  
  
This was getting easier. Still a long way from easy, especially whenever Dean tried to get Sam to touch himself—but Sam was learning to breathe through it, to let his body  _react_  instead of panicking at the pleasure. It could still be a struggle and take longer than Dean would have liked for Sam to let  _go_  enough to get to the point where he could climax. But when he did, with a shudder and a gasp, head thrown back and eyes screwed shut—at least it didn’t look so damn  _painful_.  
  
They stayed still for a couple of minutes, breath mingling as Sam’s slowed, until he was able to open his eyes and smile at Dean. Then Dean kissed him again, one of his  _you’re-fucking-awesome_  kisses, as he reached over Sam’s head for the tissue box.  
  
Not until they were in bed that night, Sam asleep with his head turned toward Dean’s pillow, did the nagging disquiet that Dean had had all evening finally resolve and sharpen into clarity.  
  
His mind had been replaying the scene on the couch, because, holy fuck this was  _Sam_  and what Dean had both fantasized and hated himself for wanting for months, if not years. Countless times Dean had wrapped a hand around his dick and imagined it was Sam’s hand, Sam jacking him while kissing and whispering in his ear how much he wanted Dean, and it had  _all_  come true tonight.  
  
It had been perfect.  
  
Too perfect.  
  
It had been too fucking good to be true, because nothing with Sam had gone down the way he’d imagined, the way he’d wanted it to, except for the first time he’d kissed Sam, and even then there had been layers of fucked-up-ness beneath the surface that he hadn’t had the least fucking clue about, and his gut was telling him that this was another time life was about to take him out at the knees with a crowbar. Something didn’t make sense. Sam hadn’t hesitated from the first moment he pulled out Dean’s cock to bring him to climax, like he knew exactly how to take Dean there, like he’d—  
  
Dean shoved his hand into his mouth and bit down hard on the knuckle for a long, long minute. He fought to breathe, not to scream or vomit or jolt up and wake Sam. He still had his arm around Sam’s shoulders, and he was very careful not to move it at all.  
  
Five months ago, during Sam’s horrible fever, Dean had taken Sam’s sweat-soaked shirt off him and had seen the scars for the first time. He had felt horror, revulsion, nausea, and rage all at once, and he had bottled it all up because he had to help Sam, and letting all that go then would not have helped him.  
  
Nor would it now. Not tonight, not tomorrow. Someday, Dean would find a time and place and the right piece of _shit_  to burn all of it out, to make them  _pay_ , but not now where it could ruin their first fucking Christmas together.  
  
Sam had been so happy these last few days, animated, buoyant, even  _assertive_ , taking charge with light switches and decorations and presents, more alive than Dean had ever seen him. Even his smile at Dean tonight, after he’d stroked Dean to coming, had been proud and happy.  
  
Dean drew in a shuddering breath and turned on his side, to Sam, where he could press his lips to his forehead in a kiss, careful not to wake him. His other hand, just as carefully, brushed Sam’s hair back.  
  
To anyone who didn’t know him, Sam might look fragile. But Dean knew better. Sam was a hell of a lot stronger than anyone to survive through all he had and, Dean knew for a fact now, still not be broken.  
  
~*~  
  
Early the next day, they went back to Pearl Street for Christmas shopping. Dean said it would only get worse later in the day, so they should go now, a fast and hard surgical strike, like pulling a bad tooth. But he was only talking about the crowds, and Sam was certain he would be able to manage them. He had a cell phone in case he and Dean were separated, they were avoiding malls and anywhere with rampant chainsaw activity, and, besides, he was on a  _mission_. The same mission as everyone else in the stores. Sam was buying presents for someone he loved, so for once, he was no different from any of them.  
  
Dean wanted to hit the bookstore first, which was great since there was a backpacking store not far down the same block. Dean dawdled a long minute outside, which confused Sam until he realized that presents should be a  _surprise_ , told him he’d meet Dean back there in half an hour, and stepped away. He couldn’t turn his back until he saw Dean grin, duck his head in acknowledgement, and disappear into the bookstore, a moment before a large group of shoppers moved between them.  
  
The backpacking store was abuzz with activity, employees and customers pressing through the aisles, hurrying without ever breaking into a run, and products scattered here and there on the floor where someone seemed to have rifled through them before rushing off. No one noticed Sam, and that was how he liked it best. There was safety in invisibility, and it didn’t take him long to find a wall of socks and locate the double-lined fleece kind he was pretty sure Dean had meant. He took down a few pairs, rubbing the incredible softness between his fingers. That had been easy. It felt almost too easy. He had the socks now and also the amulet wrapped in his duffel at the apartment, but that didn’t seem like enough. They were small, pitiful presents for Christmas. For Dean. Especially when he thought about everything Dean had given him over the last five months—clothes and food and books, anything he had looked at even a few seconds longer than normal.  
  
The beach, trees, strawberries. A whole world outside of Freak Camp.  
  
Sam shivered involuntarily, and his gaze fell on a raised island that showcased different types of hiking boots. Sam stepped forward and ran his thumb over the leather brim of one shoe, feeling the supple leather.  
  
“Can I help you?”  
  
Sam turned to see a young salesman smiling inquisitively at him. He looked back at the boot and thought again of Dean’s cracked and peeling boots, the way he had lingered over the shoe selection in the last thrift store before shrugging and turning away with a dismissive  _nothin’ in my size, mostly crap anyway_.  
  
“Yes,” Sam said finally. “Yes, please.”  
  
When Sam met Dean outside the bookshop, he kept the large bag behind his back, feeling both exultant and anxious. Dean had his own suspiciously large bag on his wrist, and as he pushed off the wall to peer at what Sam had, Sam twisted away.  
  
“It’s secret, right?” he said, a little breathlessly. “You can’t look. We have to wrap them, too.”  
  
Dean looked amused, but gave up trying to get a better look at Sam’s bag. “The whole nine yards, sure. You got it, Sammy.”  
  
They stopped for wrapping paper and gift bags at the same dollar store where they’d gotten their decorations, and Dean took his bags to the bedroom while Sam stayed in the living room, making his best guess at how wrapping paper worked. Dean had freely admitted to being clueless at wrapping, as he picked up gift bags for his presents.  
  
Once all the presents were under the tree, including Janet’s cookie tin (Sam had taken the cookies out and put them in tupperware, but he’d wanted the ribbon-wrapped tin, their first present, under the tree with the rest), they took a minute just to look at their brightly decorated tree and the trove of presents underneath, multi-colored lights flashing off the smooth sheen of plastic and tissue paper.  
  
“Whaddayaknow,” Dean said quietly. “It looks like Christmas.”  
  
~*~  
  
Snow began to fall early on the morning of Christmas Eve. Sam and Dean stayed in, making cookies on the pizza tray and watching a few Christmas classics (no Home Alone, Dean knew better now, but the Grinch was all right). Sam was more absorbed by the decoration possibilities with the cookies than the films, playing with variations of icing and frosting until they had dozens of brilliantly colored, sugary options.  
  
At dusk, they bundled up and headed back downtown, arriving just as the singers were taking their places and opening their song binders before the crowd. A table to the side had two large Igloo jugs labeled respectively for cider and hot chocolate, and Sam and Dean circled around the crowd to fill tiny paper cups with the steaming liquid before finding a good spot to watch.  
  
The choir was from the local university, judging by their baby faces and the logo on their matching scarves. They were bundled in padded jackets and beanie hats topped with fuzzy balls or dangling braids, their breath misting over their music. No one had instruments, not even one of those silver triangles, so hopefully this wasn’t going to suck.  
  
The conductor—probably a professor—stood in front and waved his directing stick once, and the ensemble began with a low hum that had the entire crowd quieting as they strained to hear.  
  
It was the beginning of “Carol of the Bells,” which Dean recognized first from “Home Alone.” He’d been impressed in the movie because it was when Kevin found his balls and decided to take the situation into his own hands, but he’d never heard it sung live before, and it was a completely different sound, the overlapping parts and the build of the music making him  _feel_  the song in a way he never had before. And, yeah, the singers were pretty fucking good.  
  
Dean glanced at Sam’s parted lips, his eyes fixed in wonder at the choir, and nudged his side once before leaning in close. Sam met his eyes, his own still wide and shining, and as he turned back to the choir, his gloved fingers found Dean’s, gripping tight and sure.

(by quickreaver)

~*~

The next morning, Sam woke early, while Dean was sound asleep. He rolled over to glance at the clock, which told him what he’d expected to see: six o’clock on the dot. Like some part of his brain still heard the FREACS wake-up call blaring through the barracks, and Karl’s and Victor’s shouts for the freaks to  _line up, move your asses quick-quick or we’ll take it out your hides. Even yours, Pretty Freak, not pretty enough to dawdle, not today_. Even hundreds of miles and months away weren’t enough for his body and mind to forget.  
  
He realized, seconds after the memory had locked his hands in the sheets and clenched his eyes, that it wasn’t just the memory of klaxons and billy clubs that had woken him. Outside, faint but unmistakable, were church bells, tolling the hour with an added flourish of melody that Sam recognized from the Christmas carols last night.  
  
A smile spread across his face, and Sam turned to bury it against Dean’s shoulder. Christmas had arrived at last.  
  
The holiday hadn’t been anything like Sam had expected in the real world. Such an event, a single day, with weeks of anticipation, and hardly a single building left without some sign of the holiday, whether that was a wreath, lights, or a huge tree decked with colored globes. The people too, seemed different, stopping to wish each other happy holidays when they might not have even spoken at all before.  
  
Of course it wasn’t perfect. People had been willing to shove and argue in the shops over the smallest items, and plenty of people had had dark circles beneath their eyes. Even Dean had seemed stressed at times, staring at certain traditional Christmas items as though he had never seen them before, or wasn’t sure how they could work. Sam thought that maybe Dean hadn’t really experienced these things before, maybe didn’t always believe the rosy picture that he painted for Sam. But the more they had done, stringing lights and baking cookies, the more Dean had relaxed and seemed to actually enjoy it as much as Sam did.  
  
And here they were, finally, at Christmas Day.  
  
Sam felt another thrill of excitement, but he smothered it against his pillow, not ready yet to wake Dean. He wasn’t sure what people did on Christmas Day, apart from opening presents. Sam couldn’t wait to see Dean open his, and he couldn’t help but wonder what Dean might have gotten him. Dean had already given him so many things (books, clothes, a wallet and real ID, and food, so much food every day that he never felt hungry); what would he have chosen specially for Christmas?  
  
There was nothing,  _nothing_  Sam could give Dean that could equal even a fraction of all of that. But that wasn’t what Christmas was about, according to all the shows and stories. It wasn’t about repayment, but… family. Being with family, and showing you cared. Maybe Sam could do that much.  
  
Still, Sam hoped he’d gotten the right presents for Dean. Though Dean had only asked for socks, Sam couldn’t help the nagging conviction that something—or maybe everything—he’d gotten Dean was totally, unforgivably _wrong_. Maybe Dean wouldn’t want to wear a necklace. Maybe he liked his old things, and wouldn’t even touch the new shit Sam had bought him. And what if he didn’t like them, what if he  _hated_  everything, would Christmas be worth anything, would Dean ever want to celebrate it with Sam again?  
  
Sam’s worries were interrupted when Dean shifted in his sleep, one arm curling around his head and rubbing at his ear, the other finding Sam’s hip to tug him in. Dean muttered something unintelligible, then mashed his face into the pillow.  
  
Sam watched him, fascinated, and carefully lay his hand on Dean’s back. There was something wonderful about watching Dean move in his sleep, even if he also felt a bit guilty for taking advantage of him in such a vulnerable and private moment. Dean always smiled—a fucking  _beautiful_ , breathtaking smile—when he caught Sam watching him, but Sam felt something new as he watched Dean stretch and turn in his sleep, sheet and boxers twisting to show more and more skin: Sam felt a spark, low in his belly. And he knew, now, what it was and that Dean was okay with it, fucking  _loved_  it, even, and it was okay that Sam wanted it too. But Sam didn’t want it unless Dean were awake, unless he could see and kiss and tell Sam that it was okay as they touched.  
  
So Sam closed his eyes, focusing on the warmth of Dean’s back under his palm, and let himself fall back asleep.  
  
When he next woke, it was to Dean’s hand moving slowly, leisurely through his hair, in the way Sam liked best. A smile spread across his face before he opened his eyes to catch Dean’s.  
  
“Merry Christmas,” Sam said, trying not to feel self-conscious over how the words felt on his lips; but he was rewarded by Dean moving in close to kiss him, warm and sweet, the best present. But that thought reminded him of the rest of the presents under the tree and all the nerves rushed back. As soon as they broke the kiss, he blurted, “When do we open the presents?”  
  
Dean snorted, rolling onto his back. “Yeah, you’ve got Christmas all figured out.” Embarrassed, Sam squirmed away, but Dean was already rolling out of bed. “We can hit the tree soon as we want, but I need coffee first. You want anything to eat?”  
  
They ended up toasting a few bagels and settling before the tree with eggnog and coffee respectively. Sam felt more nervous than ever, rocking slightly between the presents and Dean, anticipation and apprehension twisting his hands.  
  
“Here,” Dean said, pushing one laden gift-bag toward Sam. “Open that one first.”  
  
“You should open—” Sam hesitated, in a momentary agony of indecision, then finally seized his middle-sized present. “This one. It’s not very good. I mean, they’re not—”  
  
“Dude. Just open your present.” Dean waved at the one in front of Sam, already tearing off the top section of his own. Sam bit his lip, then made himself focus on the present before him, instead of watching Dean’s face as he opened his offering.  
  
Despite Dean’s enthusiastic paper-shredding example, Sam couldn’t help moving carefully, unknotting the bow and reaching cautiously into its depths until his fingers found and withdrew a few thin, plastic squares. Sam frowned as he read the titles on the cases:  _Mozart_  and  _Beethoven_.  
  
“Keep going, there’s more,” Dean said, and Sam looked up to see him watching closely, his hands stopped midway through tearing off Sam’s wrapping paper.  
  
Sam reached in again and pulled a large clear plastic case from the bottom, containing—a CD player, it said in large letters on top, though it took a very long minute for Sam’s brain to process what it meant. Sam looked slowly between the CD player and the three CDs, the third with  _Led Zeppelin IV_  on the case.  
  
It was music. The music Sam liked, and the ability to hear it, whenever he liked.  
  
Sam was so long staring at them, absorbing the magnitude of the gift, that Dean’s cough startled him. Looking up, he found Dean leaning toward him, looking worried.  
  
“It’s a bitch to find a decent Walkman these days, so I figured I’d get you what all the kids have now.” He nodded to the CD player. “You’ll have to build your own CD collection, but I thought I’d get you started—just the basics, I know it’s not—”  
  
“Dean,” Sam interrupted, “this is awesome.”  
  
The relief that broke across Dean’s face twisted Sam’s heart. Without thinking, he leaned forward, spilling presents to either side, to catch Dean’s jaw in his hand, and kissed him hard. It was meant to be quick, but Dean made a pleased sound and caught Sam’s hand, holding him there. When they broke apart, Sam stayed close, staring into Dean’s gleaming eyes. “You didn’t open my present yet,” he whispered.  
  
Dean glanced down at it, and Sam sat back, forcing his attention back to the CDs—one Beethoven, one Mozart, and one Led Zeppelin—as Dean finished tearing off the paper. Sam counted to ten, then let himself peek up.  
  
Dean was closely examining the black plastic case, decorated with exclusive stickers of Dean Winchester-approved rock bands.  
  
“I thought it could hold your cassettes,” Sam said quickly. “See the indents—you have that shoebox now, but it’s not… neat, and they always get jumbled. I thought this might, but if it doesn’t—”  
  
“Dude,” Dean said, holding the case up and grinning wide as he ever had. “Awesome.”  
  
The next presents came easier. Sam was delighted with the comic book encyclopedia, and Dean was actually thunderstruck by the boots, demanding when Sam had hustled up the cash to get them. Sam denied needing any, insisting he’d just gotten a good holiday sale. But Dean’s third gift to him, a curved knife inlaid with silver, almost brought Sam to tears—not because of the knife itself, but the leather sheath with S.W. stamped into it.  
  
But Dean’s jaw dropped when he saw the amulet, and he held it up to his eye to examine it. “Dude,” he breathed. “Where did you  _get_  this?”  
  
“Oh, you know, I just picked it up,” Sam said. He found himself risen anxiously to his knees, watching Dean’s initial reaction. “It’s okay? You like it?”  
  
“ _Like_  it? Sam, this is the most badass gift since the Impala.”  
  
“Oh.” A warmth suffused Sam, flushing from his neck to his face, and he sat back.  
  
Dean tugged the cord over his neck, dropping the amulet in front of his chest. The sight of it there did something funny to Sam’s chest. It was hard to breathe, but felt nothing like the breathlessness during a panic attack.  
  
Then Dean leaned across to catch his jaw with one hand, bringing him in for a kiss, just like Sam had earlier. Sam swayed into it, almost ready to sweep away the cast-off wrappings and gifts to make room on the carpet, but Dean broke the kiss, lips curved against his as he breathed, “How’s that for a first Christmas?”  
  
Sam smiled. “It was the best,” he said simply, looking around at the tree, the presents—his heart doing a double-step again at the sight of the amulet on Dean’s chest. “But…” he hesitated, not sure he dared add anything to this perfect day.  
  
“What’d we forget?” Dean raised his eyebrows. “Don’t think there’s enough white out there to build a snowman.”  
  
“No,” Sam said, and paused briefly, before rushing ahead. “Christmas isn’t just about presents—it’s about family, right?”  
  
Surprise wiped out everything else in Dean’s face, and apprehension flickered past, followed by wariness. “That’s what I hear on the Hallmark specials, yeah.”  
  
“Well,” Sam said, nails digging into his palms, but he’d already taken the plunge, “I think you should—why don’t you call Bobby?”  
  
Dean’s mouth actually fell open, and Sam bit the inside of his lip to keep from laughing, just a little. “That,” Dean said slowly, “is an awesome idea.”  
  
Sam relaxed, immensely relieved, while Dean went to the bedroom to find his phone. When he came back and flipped it open, he paused.  
  
“You wanna say hi too?”  
  
“Oh,” Sam said, startled. They’d spent Thanksgiving with Bobby, and he’d been honored to be a part of Bobby’s feast, but that could have been a courtesy to Dean—it didn’t mean he’d want to hear from Dean  _and_  Sam on Christmas Day. “If—you think he’d want to talk to me?”  
  
“‘Course he would,” Dean said, and put the phone to his ear. “Hey old man, you didn’t get stuck down a chimney last night, did you?”  
  
Whatever Bobby’s response was made Dean snicker, then he said, “Hey, here’s Sam,” and held out the phone.  
  
~  
  
Bobby heard Sam’s soft voice, breathless, but without the nervousness from every time before, “Hi, Bobby. Merry Christmas.”  
  
Oh,  _balls_. In that moment, Bobby Singer realized that there had been room enough left in his soldered-together heart for another messed-up kid, alongside that smartass, reckless, and heartbreakingly sincere Dean Winchester. Then again, Sam had the chance to be the least fucked-up of any of them, and wasn’t that the worst of it.  
  
"Hey, kid! Merry Christmas to you too. You making sure Dean spikes his eggnog with bourbon and not the other way around?"  
  
Sam laughed—the first time Bobby had heard him laugh at something he, rather than Dean, had said—and told him about their tree, the carols and cookies, the nice woman who owned the bagel shop and had remembered them after all these months. Bobby listened, slowly forming a picture of a  _real_  Christmas, the kind hunters and their families almost never got. The last time he’d gotten a call from any Winchester on Christmas, John had been bleeding from the head and three sheets to the wind.  
  
After they hung up, Bobby took a minute just to blink at the receiver and process. He’d barely known Sam for six months—they’d spent maybe a week together, total. He’d known Dean almost his whole idjit life. So where had he gotten the knuckleheaded sense that he’d fight and die and lie and cook and care just as much about Sam as the fool he sometimes thought he’d half-raised?  
  
Maybe that should have worried him more, made him quadruple-check the tests he’d run the first time Sam crossed his threshold, wondering what he could have missed. But, for once, he was willing to let it go, leave the work safely triple-checked.  
  
Maybe Sam had a special, supernatural something that could work through even the most paranoid hunter’s shell, but Bobby was willing to bet (just like Dean had so many months before), that it was just Sam.


	26. Chapter 26

The morning of January 24, Sam woke again before dawn, but instead of closing his eyes until he fell back asleep, he slipped out of bed and went to the kitchen. He tried to be absolutely quiet, but no matter how silently he could move, he couldn’t stop the microwave from humming or manage to catch it before the timer ran down and started beeping. He winced at that, and kept one ear tuned to bedroom. When he heard the first creak of the mattress, he rushed back down the hallway.  
  
“You have to stay in bed!” he announced to Dean, who was sitting on the edge of the bed and looking befuddled, his hair standing up in all directions. Sam made a pushing gesture with his hands, imploringly. “Just a few more minutes. I’ll be back.”  
  
“Uh.” Dean looked like he was fighting a grin, but he composed himself as he scratched the back of his head. “I was gonna go take a pee? Then I’ll get straight back to bed, I swear.”  
  
“Yeah. Yes. That’s fine. I’ve got...you’ll see. Just… _stay_ ,” Sam said, and backed out of the room.  
  
Five minutes later, he had everything balanced precariously on the pizza pan, mugs rattling against the plate and bowl with every tremble of his hands. He put the whole thing down, then inhaled and exhaled slowly before rubbing his palms dry on his pajama pants and picking it up again.  
  
Sam didn’t drop it on the way to the bedroom. He didn’t think he would, even with the hand-trembles that he couldn’t seem to control. But he was definitely feeling more nervous than he had expected, more of the old pressure to perform  _perfectly_ , more of the old fear of failure (and its consequences) than he had felt in the last month.  
  
Ironically, it was the familiar weight of that fear, the training that had drummed into him the importance of performance over any demand of the body or soul, that kept his pace even to the bedroom, kept the laden dishes neatly balanced. He didn’t dare to look at Dean’s face as he entered. He was sure—he  _believed_  that this was a good gift. Not nearly what Dean deserved for his twenty-first birthday, of course, not nearly equal to anything that he had given Sam, but at this point that was a given. But it was something, and something that Sam could do, and something that a real might do for someone precious. And Sam wanted to do that for Dean.  
  
“Whoa, whoa,” Dean said. “Did you make a grub run while I wasn’t looking?” He was sitting against the wall behind the bed, comforter dragged up to his waist but not quite covering the ribbon of skin around his navel. Sam could see that much, even without looking up, still watching his feet, watching the floor. When he got close enough, Dean reached out to take the pizza pan, carefully closing his fingers around the edge beside where Sam’s held it in a white-knuckled grip. When he settled the tray on his lap, Sam breathed in relief and raised his eyes. Dean understood, and this gift, no matter how small, was going to work.  
  
Dean blinked down at the instant oatmeal, bacon, eggs, and mugs of coffee on the tray, like he had forgotten what exactly someone was supposed to do with food appearing in one’s lap. And his face was flushed, warm even with only a thin T-shirt covering his chest, so maybe Sam had made the meal too hot, left the oatmeal in the microwave too long even though he’d followed the packaged directions perfectly. That reminded Sam of every worry, every warning that had gnawed at him while he was preparing the food.  
  
“I may not have done it right,” he said in a rush. “I mean, it may not be any good. I microwaved the bacon like you showed me, and tested a piece just to make sure it wasn’t, you know—”  _freak food_ , he didn’t say, but rushed on, “and it’s not as greasy as you like it, but—”  
  
“Sam,” Dean said, and it was quiet, but Sam shut his mouth immediately. When Dean met his eyes, Sam found his own mouth matching the smile there. “You just made this,” Dean said, “the most awesome birthday ever.”  
  
Sam had to look down, even as he was smiling so hard his cheeks hurt. “I read about it. It seemed like—something I could do for you. And I wanted—” Sam stopped to take a breath and raise his eyes. “I wanted to bring you food, like—like you used to bring me.”  
  
Something moved in Dean’s face, and he reached recklessly for Sam over the tray. Sam met him halfway for the kiss, one hand on Dean’s hand, the other stabilizing the coffee cups.  
  
When they came up for breath, Dean studied the array of food. “You better have a plate in there for yourself. It’s my birthday. You don’t want me eating alone on my birthday.”  
  
Sam grinned again and pulled a spare plate from under the heaping plate of scrambled eggs. “I tasted a couple things already, but figured w-we could share.” He pulled a fork and spoon from the pocket of his pajamas. Dean kissed him again—quick, sloppy, wonderful—and reached for the fork on the tray.  
  
~  
  
What the hell Dean Winchester ever did to deserve a kid like Sam in his life, he had no fucking clue. Breakfast in _bed_ , hot damn. He was going to need the next three months just to figure out what to do for Sam’s birthday. He’d have to find the right balance between awesome and sappy and definitely drop some hints ahead of time (nothing would suck more than trying to make his kid smile and ending up giving him a panic attack with oranges or some shit like that) to make sure that whatever he did was perfect.  
  
He was mulling over possibilities (maybe take Sam to a classical concert, maybe to a science museum or an aquarium, he always geeked out over the Discovery channel) when Sam casually said over the dishes, "So, do you know where you're going out tonight?"  
  
“Out?” Dean swallowed down the last strip of bacon. "Didn't know I was going out tonight."  
  
"Of course you are," Sam said, and made a slight face, as though Dean was being ridiculous on purpose. "According to all my sources, twenty-first birthdays are a very big deal, traditionally celebrated by copious amounts of alcohol and other forms of debauchery."  
  
Dean laughed—the kid was just so matter-of-fact about it—and Sam relaxed into a grin. "It's  _true_ , and you shouldn't miss out. You only turn twenty-one once, you know.”  
  
“Well, that depends on the date on the IDs.” Dean smirked.  
  
But Sam pressed on, delivering his opinions on twenty-first birthdays with the same earnestness he brought to hunt research and high school pre-calculus. “I figured I could bring a book and stay in the Impala, or hang out inside the bar if you want, and I'll be your designated driver at the end of the night. Or the morning. Whenever you’re done.”  
  
Dean sighed. "Sam, you're not my chauffeur. I'm not stashing you in the car or in a back table while I get wasted. If I'm going out for my twenty-first,  _we’re_  doing it together.”  
  
Sam shifted on the bed. "But if I’m there…” He took a deep breath. “It’s also traditional to get l-laid on a twenty-first birthday, and—unless you're reconsidering the P-PG rule. I-I'd be okay with that," he said, very quietly, and looking straight into Dean's eyes. "We could, tonight. I’d like that, with you.”  
  
Dean's stomach flipped on too much eggs and oatmeal, and he sucked in a steadying breath, even as he reached for Sam's arm. "Sam, I’m not—we’re not there yet.”  _And you're not handing me your body as a fucking birthday present._  
  
Sam's eyes dropped, his mouth pressed in a thin line. "Then I'm sure you won’t have trouble finding a woman who would love a chance to—to go to b-bed with you."  
  
“Yeah, that wouldn’t—wait,  _what?_  Sam, I—”  
  
"This is your  _twenty-first birthday_ , Dean,” Sam said with finality. “You’re  _supposed_  to get—l-laid. I know that. If you won't sleep with me, you should find  _someone_.”  
  
Dean blinked, opened his mouth to reply, closed it, opened it again to take a couple rapid, irregular breaths. “Sam...I… That’s not going to happen. Can we drop this now and just finish our fuck—breakfast, breakfast is good, I really like it.”  
  
“It would be—” Something in Dean’s face or tone (yeah, maybe he was talking a little faster than he usually did or  _something_ ) stopped him. Sam ducked his head and said instead, “I’m really glad you like it,” before turning his attention to finishing his half of the food.  
  
Through the day, Dean tried to focus on the food, Sam’s smile, their drive through the mountains to catch a view, the burgers and Cokes they got for lunch at a greasy spoon they’d found just after Christmas, and it worked, it all worked, it was a fucking wonderful day. But every now and then, when he caught the profile of Sam’s smile, when he found himself looking at Sam’s fingers just brushing his thigh as he smoothed a paper napkin out across his lap, he could hear Sam saying those words.  
  
 _We could do it tonight. I’d like that with you._  
  
The kicker wasn’t even the words, though Dean couldn’t shake those out of his head. It was the way he’d said it, the calm sincerity on his face as he sat on the fucking bed with him and offered...everything. Fuck, for all Dean knew, if he’d said “okay” right then, if he’d accepted Sam’s offer with the same stupidity that he’d had six months back, then Sam would have laid back right then and…  
  
Fuck. No, no no, this wasn’t, he couldn’t. Dean’s brain knew better. The big brain, at least. For all they had learned about each other over these months, even in these last few glorious weeks, Dean knew they still had disastrously different definitions of “okay” for that step.  
  
The rest of Dean’s body, though. Couldn’t let it go, couldn’t come down from the surge of hormones from the minute Sam had— _offered_  himself as Dean’s goddamn twenty-first birthday present.  
  
But, fucking hell, Dean didn’t have to imagine anymore how Sam looked when he came, back arching, eyes fluttering shut and mouth wide. How he shuddered and grasped at Dean and wanted to kiss him the whole way through. And Dean knew— _knew_  he could make all of it good for Sam. He would take it oh-so-slow, make Sam smile, breathless and gasping all the way through: how he’d ease him down, kiss him so long and deep until Sam was writhing underneath him, until he wouldn’t be the least bit self-conscious when Dean shucked their clothes off. He’d groan and arch so pretty as Dean opened him up, fingered him slick and ready. He’d come at least once, probably in Dean’s mouth, bright-eyed and whimpering, before Dean even got inside, and then Dean would show him, carefully, gently, thoroughly,  _exactly_  how much he loved and wanted every inch of him.  
  
It would be so fucking good for both of them. Sweet and perfect and everything that Dean could imagine wanting, and Sam had said that he would be ready, willing to try and wanting,  _tonight_.  
  
When the thoughts got too loud, too alluring, the fantasies enough to distract him from the road or Sam’s smile, Dean had to clear his head any way he could, because none of that was fucking happening,  _none_  of it, not tonight, not anytime soon. That was just the way it fucking was, the way it fucking had to be, because they weren’t there yet, and there wasn’t anything that they would be able to do about it tonight. He just had to stop fucking thinking about it, and it would go away.  
  
At one point, he managed maybe ten minutes. Tops.  
  
~*~  
  
For Sam, the days between Christmas and the New Year blinked past, moving from lazy mornings in the apartment (curling so close to Dean that Sam could count every individual rise and fall of his chest) to exploring the city. It was strange after so long on the road to stay in one place, to have time and days to explore a town undisturbed by ghosts or lurking monsters. Sam wanted, in a way he hadn’t been able to want things for most of his life, to see what there was around him.  
  
After Sam picked up some brochures (and couldn’t stop himself from telling Dean about the best ones), they went to the local university’s natural history museum and browsed the exhibits. Sam wanted to touch the Navajo rugs, bold patterns grabbing the eye even after centuries of wear and time. He had to correct Dean that they were looking at a triceratops skull, not some medieval dragon. Dean wasn’t too interested in reading the plaques next to each exhibit, but, judging by the smile he couldn’t quite hide, he didn’t mind as Sam read out the highlights from each one.  
  
Though Dean was maybe too honest about his admiration for some of the weaponry and axe-heads in another display. Sam may not have known as much as he wanted about real customs, but even he was pretty sure that Dean shouldn’t have referred to them as “fucking awesome beheaders” quite so loudly.  
  
They returned to the Boulder public library another day, which Sam both found familiar and not. Like in the bagel shop and their first night back in the apartment, entering the library gave Sam an odd feeling of dissonance. He remembered being here before, and while he couldn’t identify significant changes, nothing looked—no, nothing  _felt_ the same. He was seeing these places now without the paralyzing apprehension that had distorted everything the first time.  
  
New Year’s Eve, they ended up back in the park, surrounded by fellow Boulderites (couples, friends, families) gazing up in awe as fireworks burst across the crisp winter sky. The loud pop and crackle of fireworks had made Sam jump at first, but as nothing happened but a spray of pretty lights across the sky, and with the safety of Dean’s arm around his back, he relaxed.  
  
The crowd counted down together the last seconds of the year, and when they shouted, “Happy new year!” Sam almost spilled his drink (hot cocoa, not even spiked by whatever Dean had added to his from his handy silver flask) as Dean turned him, kissing him deep as a whole cluster of fireworks burst at once. “Happy Y2K, Sammy,” he breathed to Sam, and Sam kissed him back, slipping his hands inside Dean’s jacket.  
  
It was a brand new year, and a completely new life.  
  
The rest of January slipped past, and they were still in Boulder. They’d done a milk run up in Wyoming, torching a haunted pocket watch that had been causing migraines and nightmares (nothing too serious yet, but since when did something like that not escalate?), and then dealt with a false report that could have been a serious poltergeist in Denver. It had turned out to be a bunch of asshole kids making life difficult for another asshole kid who had taken the joke a little bit too seriously. The whole business took almost a week to figure out and make sure that the authorities knew enough to burn the asses of the idiots responsible, but they managed it, and swung back around to their Boulder home base.  
  
That last case had hit a little too close, so they had both wanted to check it out, because this area was their home now, something they shared with each other, and it was a place that they wanted to keep safe and secure and supernatural-free, somewhere they knew they could come back to.  
  
Dean hadn’t mentioned his upcoming birthday apart from an offhand mention of how he’d soon be legal, but the milestone had weighed on Sam’s mind since Christmas. Even though the last batch of presents had been so successful, Sam had agonized over what to give Dean for his twenty-first birthday until a week before, when he read a book where one character served her loved one breakfast in bed. It wasn’t a good enough gift for Dean, but it had been something Sam  _wanted_ to do for him. So he would, and hope that Dean would understand the feeling behind it.  
  
~*~  
  
By mid-afternoon on his birthday, Dean knew he had to get out of there, find some kind of distraction that wasn’t found by unzipping Sam’s jeans, and maybe get wasted enough that he’d pass out the second he hit the bed that night.  
  
When he suggested they go out for dinner, Sam readily agreed. Boulder had plenty of trendy bars popular with college kids and yuppies, and Dean couldn’t stand them. But he felt weird taking Sam to the bottom-of-the-barrel dives where Dean felt most comfortable. He settled for something in between, a bar and grill he’d noticed a few times before.  
  
It had better lighting than most, and the music didn’t blare so loud that they couldn’t hear each other. The food was decent, and when he told the hot blonde waitress with the low-cut shirt that it was his twenty-first birthday, she beamed and brought them both shots, though Sammy didn’t look even close to eighteen. Sam nudged his glass across the table, and Dean downed them in quick succession. When he opened his eyes again, Sam was smiling, but it looked a little forced.  
  
“What’s up, Sammy?”  
  
Sam both shook his head and lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “Nothing. Just, uh, can I carry the keys?”  
  
Dean fished them out from his pocket and tossed them lightly over to Sam, who caught them. “Gonna get me home safe? That’s awesome.” Dean leaned back, stretching out his legs under the table to catch Sam’s ankles between his feet, pleased that his low-level buzz hadn’t affected his aim. Sam’s crooked smile grew wider and more genuine.  
  
The next hour passed with the regular arrival of fresh shots, encouraged by his winks at the waitress—Michelle, she said, when Dean asked—who didn’t seem thrown by the sight of them holding hands over the table. But around eleven, the drinks dropped off, and Dean was talking too much—nonsense, yeah, but it was making Sam smile—so he really needed another damn beer or something before the shit he was thinking about Sam’s eyes and lips and hips slipped out and drove all that happiness away.  
  
When he got up, Sam peeled out of the booth too and moved to his side.  
  
“Just goin’ to see where Michelle got off to,” Dean said, though his fingers found and twined with Sam’s. “You wanna come with?”  
  
Sam smiled. “Yeah.”  
  
They made their way to the mostly full bar. Dean took a seat on an empty stool and pulled Sam to sit on the edge of the seat in front of him, between his legs. He folded his hands over Sam’s stomach and rested his chin on Sam’s shoulder. “Want another Coke?”  
  
Sam shook his head. “I’m okay.”  
  
“How about one of those girly fruit juice drinks? You can hardly taste the liquor in ‘em. I bet you’d like a Tequila Sunrise. You like the Eagles and eagles and shit.”  
  
Sam shook his head again. “No alcohol.”  
  
Dean heaved a sigh. “All right, all right, straight-laced Sammy. Not tonight, but  _some_ night, you and me are going to get wasted  _together_. It’ll be awesome, just you and me, totally chill.”  
  
Sam made a noncommittal noise and leaned back against him, turning his head just enough so Dean could see the corner of his lips. Perfect. He leaned in to lick Sammy’s neck, right behind his ear, and Sam’s whole body jumped. Dean laughed. “‘S’allright, I gotcha.”  
  
Sam huffed a bit, shifting back in his seat, and whoa, Sammy had to be careful. Dean too. He straightened, shaking his head and scanning the bar. “You see pretty Michelle?”  
  
Sam shook his head, his too-long mess of hair tickling Dean’s nose. Dean sighed, slouching against Sam’s back. “You think she’s pretty?”  
  
Sam’s narrow shoulders moved up in a shrug.  
  
“Don’t worry, not like I’m gonna be jealous or anything,” Dean told him. “Just wonderin’. ‘Cause I know, before...well, anyway, it’s okay if you think girls are pretty. ‘Cause some of them are, like, really soft and stuff. Just wonderin’ what your type is, if it’s the same as mine. But I bet you like the quiet library girls, like I like you.”  
  
“I don’t,” Sam said, very softly  
  
“Mmm. That’s okay, Sammy.”  
  
Then Michelle appeared next to them, rattling off a set of orders to the bartender. When she noticed them, she cocked a grin. “Hey, birthday boy, what’re you doing up here?”  
  
Dean raised his head, beaming at her. “What happened to our drinks, babe? Thought we could count on you.”  
  
She snorted, making her way behind the counter to get more glasses. “Yeah, sure, you can count on me. Just hope you can count on a ride home.”  
  
“‘Course, got my Sammy right here.” Dean squeezed Sam’s arms lightly. “He’s got the keys and the skills to get us home, no problem-o. He’s good like that.”  
  
Michelle considered them thoughtfully. “Most folks could use a little brother like that.”  
  
“Not my brother,” Dean protested, but added reflectively, “Though he’d be a cute brother.”  
  
She flashed another grin at him and slid another shot and half-glass of Coke across the bar. “You guys live around here?”  
  
“Close enough.” Dean knocked back half the rum and Coke, appreciating the burn.  
  
She watched him as she rinsed out glasses under the counter. “Don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.”  
  
“We’ve been on the road.” Dean leaned forward, over Sam’s shoulder. “Usually on the road. Though I passed through a couple times last summer, if you were around back then.”  
  
Michelle shook her head. “Just started after Halloween. You should come more often,” she said, with a wider smile. “‘Gotta get good use out of that ID, after all. You sticking around long this time?”  
  
Dean grinned back at her, warm with her attention, alcohol, and Sam’s body heat against his chest. “Depends on what keeps us here. Sometimes you can’t beat the appeal of local attractions, y’know?”  
  
Sam shifted and slid off the stool. “Bathroom,” he said to Dean’s questioning look, and disappeared into the crowd.  
  
Dean glanced back at Michelle to catch her still watching him, as closely as ever. She smirked when he caught her eye. “Yeah, I think I know exactly what kind of local attraction you’re into.”  
  
Dean raised his hands in protest. “Hey, you think I need reading glasses to see what’s in front of me? Trust me, you won’t meet anyone with more appreciation for the ladies.”  
  
Michelle raised her eyebrows. “That so, huh? ‘Cause I’ve met some pretty damn  _appreciative_  men in my time.”  
  
Dean leaned forward on the bar, the better to take in her stone-washed jeans and bar T-shirt, both impressively filled by her generous curves. “I’m sure you have. But I bet you there’s ways I could show my appreciation that you’ve never seen before.”  
  
She gave a short laugh and turned away to restock a tray of clean glasses. “Watch it, birthday boy, or I might just tell you to put your money where your mouth is.”  
  
“I’d be glad to put  _something_  where my mouth is, but bills don’t taste that good.” Dean almost added  _we could go right now, sweetheart_ , out of sheer habit, but the thought of Sam made him bite his tongue. Sam, who would be coming back from the bathroom at any minute. Or could even be standing behind him right now, Dean couldn’t swear that he was tracking as well as usual.  
  
He twisted around on his stool, until he caught sight of Sam sitting back in their booth, reading a book he had somehow squirrelled away in his jacket. None of the other patrons were paying him any attention. Dean exhaled and turned back around.  
  
The crowd had eased up, which Dean guessed was usual for a weeknight. The bartender, a short dude with a goatee and sideburns, was handling the rest of the drinkers on the other side of the bar. Michelle put away the last glass and faced him again, looking him square in the eye.  
  
“Hey, I’m gonna take a break, maybe catch a smoke. Wanna come?”  
  
“Sure,” Dean said automatically, but getting to his feet reminded him that there’d been more than one shot since he’d first staked out the new spot, and that even Winchesters weren’t totally immune to alcohol.  
  
“If you think you can keep up,” Michelle said, sounding way too amused. Dean struggled to focus on her.  
  
“‘Course I can keep it up. I’m good, I’m glad, I’m fucking golden, just you wait and see.” Dean tried to tap himself on the temple to show her the fine brains he still had going, but almost poked himself in the eye. He laughed at that, and thankfully she did too. “I’m just gonna, uh, stop at the john first. Meet you out there.”  
  
“Okay.” She smiled, full of promise, and turned to leave the bar, putting a little saunter into her hips as she went.  
  
Dean took one more glance toward Sam, reading undisturbed in the booth, before making his careful way toward the restrooms.  
  
He took a piss, then washed his hands and splashed his face before examining himself in the mirror.  
  
Usually about this time, he wouldn’t be pausing longer than to check for a condom in his wallet. But right now he had to seriously ask himself if he was going to fuck a hot, willing stranger in the alley behind the bar (or maybe in her car; his baby wasn’t an option tonight) with  _Sam_  sitting less than fifty feet away.  
  
Dean rested his head against the cool mirror, water trickling down his nose. He was sober enough to know he didn’t actually  _want_  Michelle, as much fun as it would be to get a quick hot fuck or blowjob or finger her until she threw her head back and gasped  _oh fuck baby yes yes I’m comin’_ —to lose himself in the fleeting thrill of hormones and mutual  _appreciation_ , just fucking feeling good without any complications. No, he wanted Sam. He wanted everything. He’d known that this morning with Sam leaning toward him on the bed, full of trust and quiet confidence, offering Dean everything. He wanted that, wanted to lay Sam down and slide his hands between his thighs, to see Sam shiver, watch his eyes flutter with every press and thrust and make sure it was never, ever too much for Sammy, and,  _fuck_ , Dean’s hard-on was pressing against the bathroom sink.  
  
He opened his eyes and met their reflection in the mirror, grim and determined. Yeah, he was going to fuck Michelle if he could, if she was down with more than making out and grinding. All the rest—going home with Sam, looking him in the eye after—he’d figure out. The key right now was to scratch the goddamn itch and  _not_ fuck up everything he could have with Sam.  
  
He pushed away from the sink, swung open the bathroom door, and nearly ran straight into Michelle.  
  
“Hey,” she said, pulling back with a startled grin.  
  
“Hey hey,” he returned. “Looking for me?”  
  
She scoffed, sliding her thumbs into her jeans pockets. “Nah. Just about to give up on you. Finished my smoke but you didn’t show.”  
  
“What I know,” Dean said slowly, stepping into her space, “is that not just girls can play hard to get. I promise that writing me off that fast would have been real shame.”  
  
Her eyebrow stayed up, but the effect was ruined by the smile curving her lips. “Yeah? For you or for me?”  
  
“Real mutual, almost like a bank.” Dean slid his hands just above her hips, just as she reached the wall. He’d got her. But they were still in the hallway between the bar and bathroom, where anyone—Sam included—could see them. He turned his head, letting his nose brush her temple. “Think we could find someplace a little more private?”’  
  
He could hear her suck in a ragged breath, and she tilted her head toward a door further down the hall. “C’mere.” Taking him by the hand, she tugged him into the room, and Dean was happy to follow.  
  
They were inside a cramped storage room, one wall lined with cases of liquor, the other featuring shelves crammed with the usual restaurant supplies: paper towels, empty glasses, a bag of dish rags. Just to the right of the door was a small cleared area, just enough for a couple people to squeeze in, or maybe one person to lean with their back against the wall. Perfect.  
  
Michelle was playing with a strand of her hair now, twisting and smoothing the ends as she watched him, suddenly coy. Some girls were like that once they got somewhere alone, waiting for him to make the first move, not wanting to be the one always pushing.  
  
No one could ever call Dean Winchester shy. He stepped in, one hand sliding from her hip to the middle of her back, and his other tracing her face from cheek to chin, knuckles brushing over her lips. Her lips parted, and he took the invitation, bending in to kiss her.  
  
The kiss was sweet. He’d always liked kissing girls, how easy it was to sink into their softness, how they sank into him. With guys—at least, guys other than Sam—every kiss had been half foreplay, half metaphorical dick-measuring to see who would end up in charge, regardless of who was going to be on top.  
  
Some girls were super-aggressive too, and Dean loved those, but Michelle was warm and welcoming, sliding her arms around his shoulders and angling her body to press flush with his, all the way from mouth to thighs, and holy shit  _yes_ , this was awesome, perfect, exactly the outlet he needed.  
  
As they made out, their hands grew bolder, exploring backs and waists. The first time Dean skimmed the curve of her breast, Michelle shivered and tightened her grip, raising her arms to give him better access. He slid his thumb underneath to cup and squeeze her breast, doing his best to tweak her nipple through shirt and bra. She made a delicious mewling noise into his mouth.  
  
Her leg had slotted between his, and she pushed her thigh up, grinding against his dick. Now Dean was the one making noises—manly ones, of course—in his throat. His right hand moved from her back to her stomach, thumbing open the button on her jeans so he could dip his fingers into the tight space between denim and skin, pushing down until his fingers found the texture of curls. Michelle made a whole new noise, her leg dropping as he pushed further, sliding once over her clit as he reached deeper into her heat, damp panties catching over his knuckles. He curled two fingers into her, and she broke the kiss, dropping her head back with a groan as her fingers clutched his biceps.  
  
“ _Fuck_ —wait, wait,” she gasped.  
  
Dean withdrew his hand, and she took a breathless step back, jeans open and ponytail askew. “Where is this going?” she demanded.  
  
“Uh,” Dean said, and looked at his wet fingers. “Well, I was hoping to get more than these in you, if you’re down. I’ve got a rubber.”  
  
Her cheeks flushed, but she didn’t back down, eyes narrowed. “What about that boy you came in with? The one you practically had on your lap at the bar?”  
  
Dean shook his head, more to keep Sam’s face out of his mind than to answer her question. “I don’t fuck him.”  
  
Relaxing a little, she smirked. “Thank fuck. That kid looked like pure jailbait hanging off you.”  
  
Dean felt a stab of guilt, but covered by reaching for his wallet—and the condom. “So, uh, you good?”  
  
She swallowed, eyes flickering from the condom, to his slick fingers, to his dick tenting his jeans, back to his face. “Yeah, sure. Though I reserve the right to walk away when I actually see the goods,” she added. “The light stays on.”  
  
Dean huffed a laugh. “Just fine with me, sweetheart. No one’s been disappointed yet.”  
  
Her eyes narrowed again, and she stepped forward. “You like to mouth off, huh? Think a lot of yourself? Hands up behind your head, cowboy.”  
  
He raised his eyebrows. “What, you gonna cuff me? Didn’t get that kinda vibe from you, but a little kink can be—”  
  
“No.” She placed her hand right over his dick, firm and assured, and her eyes didn’t waver from his. “I’m gonna unwrap you myself, see how much you’re all talk. And I wanna do it  _without_  you distracting me.”  
  
Holy shit. Dean pulled in a careful breath and laced his hands behind his head, painfully aware of how he’d gotten even harder under her hand. But she let him go, hands moving to his belt buckle, then to undo his fly. She rubbed him again, slower, through his boxers, then, with tantalizing slowness, pulled his boxers down.  
  
Her hand caught his dick as it swung up toward his stomach, stroking him with her fingers and palm (too light to be jerking him off, but still with maddening friction), while Dean tried to breathe.  
  
Then she looked up, with a broad and wicked smile. “Gimme the condom.”  
  
Dean dropped his hands to hand it to her, and then took advantage to unzip and tug down her jeans, while she tore open the package and rolled the rubber on him. “Fuck,” he muttered, and gave up on the jeans to pull her back for a kiss, hot and deep. As he tongued her, she helped push off her jeans, while toeing off her sneakers. Once her jeans fell, she stepped out of them easily.  
  
Grabbing her under the ass, Dean turned and pushed her against the wall, where she yelped and laughed, her arms braced on his shoulders. “Where’s the fire, baby, I wanna feel those fingers in me first.”  
  
Dean obliged, setting her back down so he could shift one hand to her pussy. He kissed her a little slower as his fingers explored her, circling her clit before dipping down to slide inside, then back up to her clit before pushing deeper inside her. He repeated the cycle until she was bucking and whimpering, “Yes, yes, just  _fuck_  me already,  _God_.” Her head hit the back wall again.  
  
With a smirk, he withdrew his hand, using her slick to lube up the condom.  
  
Then the door swung open, and they both froze mid-act, heads snapping to the side.  
  
Sam stood in the closet doorway, his face frozen in shock, while Dean felt a numb proto-shock sensation that felt a hell of a lot like pure fucking panic, because  _nothiscouldnotbehappening_.  
  
Sam’s eyes moved over them, and then he swallowed and looked fixedly at his feet. “S-sorry, I thought I heard—” He shut the door.  
  
For one ringing moment, they held a silent tableau in the supply closet. Then Dean said, “ _Shit_. Goddamn fucking sonofa _bitch_ ,” and dropped Michelle.  
  
She stumbled but quickly caught her balance, her cheeks flaming red and lips twisting into a snarl. “You’re a jackass. A lying, cheating  _jackass_.” She punctuated the words by punching him on the arm, hard.  
  
Dean barely felt it as he worked his jeans back up, hands fumbling what should have been an automatic task. His head reeled, both trying and failing to accept what just happened and figure out what the  _fuck_  was supposed to come next—how he could possibly fix this, take them back to where they’d been this morning ( _he couldn’t, he’d just fucked_  everything  _up as only a Winchester could, there was no going back_ ).  
  
Michelle was still swearing at him and only halfway into her jeans when he yanked open the door and dashed into the hallway.  
  
Sam wasn’t in the hallway, the bathroom, or the bar. Dean ran outside, headfirst into some bitch mix of ice and sleet that had given the parking lot an ice sheen. Dean swore and lifted his arm above his eyes to scan the lot.  
  
There was the Impala, and Sam’s slender shape leaning against it. He wore his jacket, but hadn’t pulled his hood up.  
  
Dean ran across the lot, sliding on the asphalt, wind driving the freezing rain against his face and down his jacket collar, stealing his breath so he couldn’t find the air to shout before he reached the Impala. But Sam turned when Dean approached the car, and without speaking, they opened their doors and slid inside.  
  
Within, the drumbeat of rain was almost enough to fill the silence. Dean sat panting, water puddling on the leather seat ( _oh baby_ , but the usual agony at mistreating the Impala couldn’t make an impact), soaking through his jeans and freezing his ass.  
  
He had to  _say_  something. He was such a coward he couldn’t even face Sam directly, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam sitting so goddamn still— _too_  still, he should have been  _shivering_ , he’d been in the rain longer than Dean had and should have been soaked through—with his hands folded in his lap, head turned down.  
  
Dean licked his lips, tasting the smooth cold rainwater, and swallowed. “Dammit, Sam,” he croaked. “I’m sorry—”  
  
“It’s okay,” Sam said, immediately and without inflection. Like he had anticipated any line Dean could come up with for this, and prepared a response, though he didn’t look at Dean as he delivered it. It seemed possible, then, that he might never look at Dean again.  
  
“Fuck.” Dean lowered his head to the steering wheel, then forced himself up, forced himself to  _face_  Sam, even if Sam wouldn’t look at him—Dean couldn’t blame him for that. “Don’t say that, Sam, it is  _not_  fucking okay.”  
  
A pause, then Sam said, “It’s fine,” though much quieter. “I t-t-told you to. It’s not that—b-big, big of a deal. I just—” He took a shuddering breath, his hands clenching on his lap. “I d-don’t want to w-watch.”  
  
“Fuck no.” Dean struck the steering wheel with both palms. “Goddammit, Sam, I wouldn’t—that’s not gonna happen, fuck.”  
  
There was an awful silence, then Sam spoke in a heartbreak-thin voice. “Can—can we just g-go home? If that’s—” In the dark, by the filtered light from the parking lot, Dean saw Sam’s throat work. “If that’s okay,” he said at last, haltingly. “U-unless you want to—” One hand moved slightly in his lap, just a hint of a gesture but Dean understood as though Sam had written it out for him:  _unless you want to go back in and finish fucking her_.  
  
“Fuck,” Dean said, with more violence this time, and Sam flinched, drawing his hands back together. “No, Sam, we’re—yeah. We’re going home.” He felt for his keys, felt a familiar bottom-dropping panic when the pocket that should have held them came up empty—and then remembered. Sam’s request, with worry crinkling his brow back when he could still look him in the fucking eye. “Keys. Do you have…”  
  
Sam fumbled for them in his jeans before holding them out, eyes still landing anywhere but on Dean’s face. Dean took them cautiously, not touching Sam’s hand.  
  
It took a minute more before he fit the right key into the ignition. The car revved, sounding louder than usual, and Dean took a ferocious comfort in the headlights that beamed out through the rain and dark. He focused on those as he shifted into gear, and they drove home in silence.

For the second morning in a row, Dean woke up alone in bed.  
  
He didn’t move at first, straining to hear Sam moving around the kitchen, but there was nothing.  
  
Yeah, he didn’t think he was getting breakfast in bed this morning.  
  
He sat up slowly, wincing, though his hangover hardly even registered on the Dean Winchester scale. Then again, maybe the throb in his head was driven by each flashback of the previous night. Sam couldn’t even  _look_  at him once they’d left the bar. He’d been in bed by the time Dean got out of the shower, his back uncharacteristically turned toward the middle of the bed. Dean hadn’t tried to touch or talk to him.  
  
He had to talk now, though. There was no going forward, unless he did.  
  
Dean got out of bed and moved slowly toward the front of the apartment. The kitchen was cold and silent, and around the corner, Sam sat on one end of the couch, head bent over one of his textbooks.  
  
He looked up as Dean appeared, managing a thin imitation of a smile directed toward something slightly to Dean’s right. “Morning. There’s coffee ready to br-brew, if you just press the button.” He bent back over the textbook.  
  
“Uh.” Dean took a moment to think about that, then shook his head and moved forward, still cautious, waiting for Sam to register him approaching and maybe put out some traffic cones signaling how close he could get before the warning signs went off. Sam didn’t shift away as Dean reached the couch, but Dean still decided against sitting on it—he took a seat on the coffee table, diagonal to Sam.  
  
Sam peeked up, then seemed to realize Dean was set on talking. As he closed his textbook around a bookmark, the deep reluctance and trepidation that crossed his face so closely mirrored how Dean felt, he struggled briefly to remember what he had to say.  
  
“About last night—”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Sam said immediately, not meeting his eye. “I d-didn’t mean to interfere. I won’t do it again.”  
  
“You won’t—hold the fuck on, Sam.” Dean rubbed at his eyes, trying to get a hold on the situation. “Just stop, okay, you are  _not_  the one who should be apologizing, you have  _nothing_  to apologize for right now. I fucked up. It was all me, okay? I’m the son of a bitch whose ass you should be kicking six ways to next Christmas.”  _Or kicking to the curb._  “And whaddaya mean, you won’t do it again? What the fuck did you  _do?_ ”  
  
Sam flinched as Dean’s voice rose at the end, but replied steadily, if devoid of inflection. “I should’ve known you were o-okay, I should’ve just w-w-waited like before. Just, Dean—” He swallowed. “Could you j-just tell me—give me a time, or a n-number of hours to wait  _before_  I should worry or call or look for you, and then I’ll know and it won’t happen again.”  
  
“ _Sam_.” Twenty fucking seconds. That’s how long all Dean’s good intentions—to keep his voice calm and not upset Sam worse than he already had, to treat Sam  _right_ —had lasted. He tried again, taking a deep breath. “Sam, that’s not—that’s not how this is supposed to work. This isn’t  _about_  you walking in on me, okay, that’s not the problem—the problem is what  _I_  did.”  
  
Now Sam looked nonplussed. “But—we’re only here now because I went after you. If I hadn’t opened the door—if I’d t-trusted you, we wouldn’t be talking about this.”  
  
That shut Dean up hard. Dean hadn’t thought of that, but of  _course_  Sam was right and could cut through all Dean’s bullshit. Because the truth was, if Sam  _hadn’t_  caught him in the fucking act... Dean couldn’t kid himself that he would have manned up and confessed to Sam afterward.  
  
Sam, who knew him better than anyone else did, sure didn’t have any doubts about that.  
  
Dean couldn’t remember what else he’d meant to say, if any of it still mattered or would do any good.  
  
“It’s okay, Dean.” Sam’s voice was gentle, like he was trying to reassure  _Dean_. “It’s not like this ch-changes anything, not between us.” Dean jerked back, like he’d gotten the slap he deserved, and Sam’s brow creased in confusion. “It’s not like it’s the first time it’s happened, right? N-nothing changed before, either.”  
  
Holy  _shit_. Dean sucked in a breath, raising both his hands in the desperate hope that Sam would  _stop_ , just for a moment, to let Dean recover from one blow before he laid the next one on him.  
  
Twenty-four hours ago, Sam brought him breakfast in bed like the perfect dream boyfriend (but better because it was  _Sam_ , who had come so damn far in spite of all Dean’s fuck-ups), and Dean had been stupid enough to wonder how the universe could let a Winchester get so lucky.  
  
Now he knew that nothing had changed after all. He’d just been too stupid to see what was going on under the awesome breakfast and birthday afternoon. Sam had fucking  _told_  him that he expected Dean to sleep with someone else, if he wouldn’t sleep with him. Sam hadn’t even sounded upset, because why should he? This was his first fucking relationship— _Dean_  was his first fucking relationship—and so far, all Dean had taught him was that he should put up with Dean going out and screwing around behind his back because Sam  _wasn’t enough_.  
  
Dean’s hangover had tripled. Probably he would have felt better run over by a tank, and he might actually have to run to the bathroom to puke in a second.  
  
He dropped his head to his palm, trying to tamp down on the nausea and self-loathing. At one point, Sam tried to speak, but Dean held up his palm, and Sam stopped.  
  
Finally, Dean pinched the corners of his eyes before making himself look at Sam, who looked both nervous and concerned for Dean. “Okay, Sam,” he said quietly. “I need you to listen to me, even if it doesn’t make complete sense now—I just need you to hear me out.” Sam nodded slowly.  
  
“I fucked up,” Dean said clearly, “last night, and every other time I left you to mess around with someone else. That shouldn’t have happened, not even once, at least not without us talking first. That’s not—that’s not the way two people who are together, who care about each other the way I care about you, are  _supposed_  to act. It’s shitty, and you have the right to be fucking pissed at me, okay?” He stopped for a moment to breathe and focus on controlling his voice and tried not to pay too close attention to how Sam’s brow had creased in confusion and dismay.  
  
“I never said it,” Dean continued slowly, “but it was supposed to be just you and me. If you liked me too. You shouldn’t’ve expected anything different, you deserve  _that_  much—”  
  
“But,” Sam said, his small voice shutting Dean up at once. “But I  _t-told_  you to. I wouldn’t have said it if—I wanted you to celebrate last night, the way you like, and you didn’t want to do it with  _me_ —”  
  
“Sam, that’s because—” Dean had to stop again, aware he had to tread real fucking carefully. “What we do is real fucking special, okay? It is to me. It matters a whole damn lot. And there’s a lot of ways to do it wrong and fuck things up. So we’re better off taking it slow, okay? And it wasn’t even that long ago that we got past PG.”  
  
Sam’s eyes had widened. He stared at Dean with unnerving intensity. “ _That’s_  why you don’t want to take me? You don’t want to...mess things up?”  
  
“Yeah.” Dean eyed Sam uneasily. “Why’d you think I said no?”  
  
Sam opened his mouth, then shut it and shook his head.  
  
Jesus Christ. Dean reached over cautiously to take one of Sam’s hands, and Sam let him.  
  
Dean wanted to swear in no uncertain terms that there wouldn’t be a repeat performance of last night—that Sam was the only one for him, here on out. And he  _meant_  that, because he hadn’t even wanted Michelle, or any of the others last fall, for their own sakes. They’d been a distraction, stress relief when he had to constantly hold himself in check for Sam. But now he’d seen that look on Sam’s face when he opened that door—and whatever Sam said to the contrary, he’d looked like Dean had knifed him—and Dean knew it wasn’t worth it. He was going to grow the fuck up and deal. Happy fucking birthday, Winchester.  
  
But he couldn’t make any vows to Sam today. There was no way it wouldn’t sound like bullshit he was only saying because he felt bad—because Sam had  _caught_  him. And Sam would know, even if he was too kind to call Dean on it. No, this was a commitment Dean was going to have to prove to himself and to Sam, by action before words.  
  
Though he’d never actually made any commitment like that before. He’d never been interested in  _boyfriends_ , or in sticking around long enough for shit to get complicated. Maybe that was why he was doing such a fucked-up job.  
  
For fuck’s sake, Dean hadn’t been able to keep his lips off of Sam from the moment they’d stepped out of Freak Camp. And even when he’d tried applying the brakes over the next few months, it wasn’t like they’d ever stopped  _kissing_  entirely, or sleeping in the same bed every night. Not exactly the purely platonic behavior between bros, but when had they become a  _couple?_  And when had Dean sleeping with other people been classified as cheating on Sam? When  _hadn’t_  it?  
  
Fucking  _hell_ , he was screwing up Sam so damn bad.  
  
Dean took a slow breath. No use crying over wasted bullets. He needed to focus on how to  _fix_  things, as much as they could be fixed.  
  
“Okay, Sam...this is even more important than that last thing I said.” He met Sam’s wide, unblinking eyes, and hoped Sam was still breathing, at least. “We kinda skipped some milestones people usually have in relationships, and that’s on me and it wasn’t fair to you at all.  
  
“I like you, Sam. Way more than I’ve liked anyone before.” And  _like_  didn’t even cover it, but Dean hoped Sam remembered what Dean had said a few months ago, after he thought he saw John’s truck, because he didn’t think he could repeat it right now. “I’ve wanted to be with you from day one. You know I’ve been glad to be there for you, to help you learn and find your feet. But just because I do that, and because I...filed those damn papers to get you out—you do  _not_  have to be with me, okay? This is really, really fucking important, Sam. You don’t owe me shit, no way do you gotta—” Shit. Dean swallowed. He was  _not_  going to lose it now, he  _owed_  this to Sam. And he would have  _known_  if Sam was only kissing or touching him because he felt indebted.  
  
“What I’m saying is,” Dean said slowly, “any time you don’t wanna be with me—like as a boyfriend, like we have been, because you’re pissed at me or you just don’t  _feel_  like it, Sam, you don’t need a reason—you can stop. And it doesn’t mean I’m gonna leave you behind. We’ll just go back to G, right? But if you meet someone else that you want to be with—that’s okay too.” It fucking  _wasn’t_ , the idea made Dean want to shoot something. But it still had to be a choice Sam knew he could make, anytime he wanted, because Dean couldn’t live with himself, couldn’t live with  _Sam_ , otherwise.  
  
Sam’s eyes looked alarmingly bright now, closer to tears than at any point in this conversation, and  _fuck_ , Dean was the worst. He tightened his hands around Sam’s, hoping for comfort.  
  
Then Sam said, voice thick and fighting for steadiness, “And th-that goes for you. Too. If y-you find someone you, you want to be with—instead. You have to l-let me know. I’ll be okay, Dean, you’ve t-taught me so much. You’re not st-stuck with me, you can be with...anyone you want.”  
  
Son of a  _bitch_ , this is not how he’d wanted this to go. Any of this. “Hey, hey. I’m not going anywhere, okay?”  
  
“But you  _can_ ,” Sam said, even as his face crumpled, and he pulled one hand free to hide part of his face. “Dean. This is  _important_ , like you said. You’re not  _stuck_  with me.”  
  
“No,” Dean said, “no, no,” and got up to sit next to Sam, wrapping one arm around his shoulders. “I’m not, Sammy. You’re the only one I want to be with. And I  _will_  tell you if that ever changes, okay? But you don’t gotta worry about that. I told you, man, I’m crazy about you, and that’s nothing new.”  
  
Sam managed a weak laugh, wiping his eyes and leaning against Dean’s shoulders. “I am, too. About you.”  
  
“Good.” Dean heaved a sigh. “"Then we're going to be okay, cause we're on the same page. From now on, it's just going to be you, me, and my baby parked in the back."  
  
Sam took a deep, steadying breath and let it out slowly. “Okay,” he said.  
  
“Okay,” Dean repeated. “Good. Then let’s...let’s go grab some breakfast.”  
  
Sam nodded. “Okay.” He didn’t look him in the eye, but he didn’t move away from Dean’s side either, and that was something. That was enough, for now.  
  
~*~  
  
Victor Todd paused outside the Director’s iron-enforced door and took a steadying breath before knocking.  
  
He was very aware of the camera at the corner of the hall. He would have composed himself somewhere without observation, but after the Director’s most recent push to seed the facility with CCTVs, places a man could have a hundred percent chance of privacy had sunk to a handful, tops, and even those had...specific uses. It would have been weird for Victor to duck between the barracks alone, or to turn off recording in the breakroom.  
  
Safer to steady himself out here, where at least nerves were understandable, and the odds that he was being actively observed (and that the observer would note his sign of weakness  _and_  care) were low. Though not completely zero.  
  
The Director’s clear “Enter!” came almost immediately, and Victor stepped into Jonah Campbell’s office.  
  
The place was larger than a usual office, with a corner that was at least half-library and every item in its proper place, down to the Director himself at his desk, a neat stack of files on the edge closest to the guest chair and others scattered over his desk, various sheets of paper crumpled and piled haphazardly in some system that Victor couldn’t parse without staring.  
  
“Mr. Todd, please take a seat.” He gestured at the padded chair before his desk, and Victor sat gingerly and kept his hands in his lap. Possibly he’d been watching too many late-night horror movies, but he could imagine restraints springing from the armrests that would lock him up tight as a freak in interrogation. Paranoid? Yes, but if anyone could do it, it was the man in front of him.  
  
“Of course, sir,” he said. “What can I do for you?”  
  
The Director gestured at the files nearest Victor. “How would you evaluate this selection of freaks?”  
  
Victor glanced into the Director’s eyes, and then picked up the files.  
  
They seemed heavier than they should have been, the weight explained by the occasional souvenir pasted onto the pages: a coin, pendants, bits of bone or other small artifacts. The numbers ranged from 95UI8398 to 99WI7182, and most date and species variation in between. Day to day, Victor didn’t usually think of the freaks as numbers, so it took him a minute with each photo to realize who he was looking at. 97VP2378 was Sucker, the vampire who looked about ten and was probably the biggest blood-slut in the entire mini-nest, willing to do just about anything for a couple drops of O neg. 20WI347 was Screamer, the recent witch arrival who hadn’t shut up from the moment he got dragged out of the van until his voice wore down to a broken thread (Victor thought he was with Karl even now). All of them were young, or young-seeming, and, as far as Victor could tell, had nothing else in common.  
  
“Evaluation, sir?” Victor said, trying to put the question in his voice without actually asking it.  
  
“What’s your feel for them? What can you tell me about them as individuals and not just members of their species?” The Director watched him with calm, calculating eyes.  
  
Victor realized his right knee was bouncing and stopped it. “Do you have any…criteria?” Somehow he didn’t think that the man cared who gave good head.  
  
The Director steepled his fingers, mouth pinched in thought. “What has Mr. Rosenstein told you about my little project?”  
  
“Sir?”  
  
The Director smiled. “Please don’t pretend ignorance in defense of Mr. Rosenstein. Rest assured I wouldn’t have told him anything that was not appropriate for him to know. And I assume that as the two of you are…close, he may have shared more than a little.”  
  
Victor felt his palms break out in a cold sweat and resisted the urge to wipe them on his pants. He ran a half-dozen options through in his head, from denying that he had any fucking thing to do with Crusher to trying to defend the asshole’s honor, but he settled on, “We work well together, sir” and stopped, waiting to see which way the Director would jump.  
  
His smile never wavered. “I have noticed,” he said. “So, beating around the bush would be counterproductive. What do you know about the project Mr. Rosenstein assisted me with until that unfortunate...night of over-enthusiasm?”  
  
Victor remembered that night mainly as a series of violence and bad choices, followed by a dressing-down that had convinced him that the next time he fucked up something Director Campbell valued, he was about as likely to just disappear as lose his job. He remembered less of what Crusher had told him before, except the somewhat breathy pleasure with which the other man had told how he had “helped,” or the badly hidden pissiness at the things he hadn’t been allowed to do.  
  
“With Pre—with that freak, Winchester’s freak, you were…training him, somehow. Getting him good at research, trained to follow orders and do…whatever you needed.” And just because what the Director needed hadn’t been what most hunters or guards demanded of a monster didn’t mean that Victor couldn’t appreciate the cold-blooded artistry and skill that went into the process.  
  
“Hmmm.” The Director frowned. “I am continually reminded of Mr. Rosenstein’s lack of vision. Supernaturals are a plague on humanity, something that infiltrates, corrupts, slaughters, and conceals itself nearly undetectable within our society until it strikes. My goal is to take that perverse talent, that ability to pollute, and turn it back on the supernatural source. You could say I am researching a vaccine. You could also say that I want, above all, to make these monsters  _useful_ , and that means, mostly clearly to me, turning them to the service of the human will. Now, in that light, Mr. Todd,” he leaned forward and tapped the files that Victor had returned to the desk, “How would you evaluate these freaks as viable subjects for my project?”  
  
Victor picked them up again and leafed through them, thinking not so much about what they could do for him or other guards, as about how they reacted, which monsters he believed when they shied away, which ones reminded him of Pretty Freak. Not in looks or...amiability, but in something deeper, something maybe best described as adaptability without cunning.  
  
“This one,” he said, dropping 98UI4982 on the table. “She’s biddable without being…broken. Unidentified.”  
  
The Director  _hmm_ ed and began to peruse the file slowly, while Victor went back to the others.  
  
At the end of an hour or so, he’d pulled four names out of the dozen or so in the pile, and the Director was nodding thoughtfully and making little marks in the margins with a pencil nub. He looked up and smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Todd, you’ve been very helpful. It’s always good to get input from the men on the ground.”  
  
Victor nodded, but felt unsettled by the compliment in a way that he couldn’t quite define. “This has been enlightening, sir.”  
  
“Perhaps if I have need of your experience and good eye, I will bring you in for the more hands-on applications.”  
  
“I’m not—“ It would have been a lie to say that Victor didn’t like the violence, the fucking, hitting the freaks around a little and knowing that they couldn’t do a damn thing about it. But one of the last things Victor wanted was to be handpicked by the Director for a project like this, to be under the man’s eagle eye even more than usual. “From what Cru—Rosenstein’s told me, what you need might be outside my skill set.”  
  
“Brutality is only one way to break down a freak, Mr. Todd. I think that you would excel at many of the other methods. You have the eye.” The Director stood and stretched at his desk. Victor could hear bones creaking from even where he stood, the ever-present reminder that hunting was no profession for old men. “I’m sure that you have other things that need doing, and I have some things to mull over.”  
  
Victor stood as well. He almost bowed, caught himself, and changed it into a weird kind of half head-wiggle. “Yes, sir. Glad I could be of help.”  
  
“I never doubted you would be.” The Director gestured at the door, and Victor took the opportunity to get the hell out of there.  
  
He made it to the break room before he had to sink down onto the couch and put his head in his hands and breathe. He realized that he hadn’t locked the door or turned the cameras off (fuck, the Director had probably seen every moment of that, maybe making careful notes in yet another file). He relaxed again when Crusher came into the room, shaking out his hands and rubbing his wrist. He paused on his way to the bathroom.  
  
“You okay, Todd?”  
  
Victor rubbed at his face. “Just got out of a fucking meeting with the Director.”  
  
“Cocksucker,” Crusher muttered. “Still can’t believe that he stopped my playing with Pretty Freak, then gave him the fuck away. What’d Campbell want?”  
  
“You don’t want to know.” And he didn’t, because if Crusher knew that the program was starting up, he would get dangerously pissed at anyone else who got attention, praise, and permission to hurt freaks in new and inventive ways under the benevolent eye of the Director.  
  
And then Victor realized that if anyone was going to get drafted into the program (on the guard side), it was probably going to be him.  
  
“Hey, I’m gonna—” Crusher gestured toward the bathroom, “and then I’ve got a freak to fuck. Wanna come?”  
  
Victor swallowed, painfully, and tried to return the expression. “Nah. Thanks, though. Who’s up?”  
  
“Lucky,” Crusher replied, grinning wolfishly. “Not so lucky today.”  
  
~*~  
  
Kayla was used to seeing a guard shoving a freak into or out of the barracks, especially for trying to get off without permission. True or false, it didn’t matter. What did matter is that all the other monsters had to watch the punishment for masturbation, usually at the next assembly in the bright light of day so they all could see what happened to bad little freaks. Kayla was well-practiced at keeping her eyes fixed on the scene but drifting away inside, noting the other monsters’ flinches with detached derision. Just another normal day at Freak Camp.  
  
It wasn’t so normal, though, for it to be Lucky.  
  
Guards and freaks alike called the shifter Lucky, because everyone knew that he jerked himself off on a regular basis, but he never got caught. Lucky got lucky with himself most nights, and never got anything worse than the shit beaten out of him because none of the guards could nail him on it, and he put out enough that they didn’t want to press the issue.  
  
“Finally caught you, Lucky-boy,” Crusher said, pinning both of the shifter’s wrists above his head with one hand. He played with the bright green tag shot through his arm. The old wound bled slowly, the skin sloughing around the entry point. “You know what we’re going to do to you, don’t you? Boil those hot hands of yours. Though it doesn’t seem like quite enough, does it? Maybe we should clean off your dirty cock too.”  
  
The shifter was shaking against the wall, so terrified that his skin started to slip and sag.  
  
Crusher leaned closer. “Maybe we should shred a little silver in the water, so you really feel it. ‘Cause you’ve been feeling it real good, haven’t you, Lucky?” He grinned. “On the other hand, you’re a shiftie, so maybe we can cut a deal. You ready to cut a deal, Lucky-boy?”  
  
Lucky nodded, hard and desperate. “Yeah. Yes, sir.”  
  
Crusher’s breathing got heavier, his voice rougher. “You remember the Pretty Freak?”  
  
Lucky swallowed. “Sam the Wh—yeah. Yeah, I remember the slut.”  
  
“Yeah.” Crusher smiled, slow. “Sam the Whore. Think you can take his shape? Think you can bend over and make hot little noises while I fuck you? ‘Cause if you can hold that boy’s sweet ass while I ride you the way I want, then I forget I saw you jerking yourself. Maybe I let you jerk off while I’m inside you. Sounds like your lucky day, doesn’t it, Lucky?”  
  
The shifter swallowed. Monsters had died getting fucked the way Crusher liked it. But if he tried to say no now, Crusher would probably fuck him, and then have him dipped for touching himself anyway.  
  
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I can be Sam.”  
  
“Good.” Crusher licked his lips. “Come on, tonight’s gonna be a private little party. Follow me nice and I might not even nail you down. And close your fucking pants, Pretty Freak.”  
  
Trembling, Lucky tightened the drawstring on his pants and followed him. Kayla watched him go.  
  
The next day, Lucky came back to the barracks wearing some other face—neither the one he left with, nor, thankfully, Sam’s—while the rest of the monsters were outside working or just loitering in the unforgiving Nevada winter cold. When they came back inside for the night, he was huddled on his cot, an extra blanket draped over him.  
  
He didn’t move the next day, either, just lay there shaking, but managed to get up the day after and hobble into the yard. He didn’t meet anyone’s eyes.  
  
Kayla watched him without looking like she was watching. Crusher had made her offers, telling her that if she would just be Sam for a night he’d stop touching her for a year, he’d get her food and blankets without needing to suck anybody off, she’d have no interrogation for weeks and weeks if she would just pull on his Pretty Freak’s face and let him ride between her legs.  
  
Kayla smiled, a bitter hard smile when no one else could see her. She’d always suspected that any deal Crusher made would be worse for her than just saying no, over and over again. Victor or even Bernard might keep a promise, might lack the creativity to hold to their word without making her regret it, but Crusher would have no problem promising her the world and then making sure she didn’t survive the night.  
  
Just another accident with a monster. Another crushed rib cage, another slow wound that would kill without anyone noticing until it was too late to get her to Special Research.  
  
She settled easily into the belief that it was only her goddamned sense of survival that kept her from saying yes, and that it had had nothing to do with the particular ass Crusher wanted. Sam was gone, gone, gone—maybe dead by now, wouldn’t that be nice?—and thinking about him was just a chink in her armor, like Winchester had been a gaping hole in his.  
  
“You wanna be the Pretty Freak for me?” Crusher whispered in her ear. “I’ll make it worth your while.”  
  
She just looked at him blank, hollow, stupid, like she had no idea who he was talking about, what person he could possibly mean, and kept her mouth shut, except when the things he did made her grunt or cry involuntarily. Eventually, he got bored, convinced that the years had made her as stupid as she pretended to be, and went away.  
  
And then, only then, could she think about Sam.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors' note 1: whereupon was unfortunately unavailable to beta this chapter (she's going through a lot of upheaval, and I'm sure she'd appreciate positive thoughts/wishes). We did our best to proofread, but if something looks wonky in either writing or logic or terminology, please let us know. whereupon is always a huge help, and we missed her catches! Hopefully the errors (small or large) have been caught, but if not, take it as evidence of the excellent service she provides improving our fic. We're also going to be posting on LJ a beta call shortly to offer us another eye during times like this -- let me know here too if you're interested.
> 
> Authors' note 2: This chapter we introduce a new character who may look like a direct tribute to alice_alaizabel. We had conceived and named this character before we knew our dear Alice, but, having realized the alignment, we are happy to dedicate this character to her.
> 
> Thank you so much to quickreaver for the gorgeous, gorgeous art. <3

Rushing into the emergency room, all Dean knew was white noise, shouting, and Sam’s too-cold fingers in his hand. He was peripherally aware of people asking him questions, of them crowding too close, of the steady throb in his shoulder where the troll had clipped him, but none of that was his focus.  
  
He almost went for his knife when someone grabbed at his shoulder to try to pull him away from Sam (thank fuck the grip was still tight, thank fuck that Sam hadn’t let go, and Dean did  _not_  think about rigor, about terror, about all the things natural and supernatural that could freeze fingers in their last grip,  _fuck_ , he wasn’t fucking thinking it), but after they let go, someone snapped in his face, and he found himself back in a world that was made up of more (threats, allies, obstacles) than Sam.  
  
“You need to let him go,” the doctor barked. He was an older man with thinning hair and the ability to stare down a Winchester without blinking. “We need to get him into surgery ASAP.” His expression softened briefly, and he added, “You need to let us do our jobs.”  
  
Dean stared at him, then took a shaky breath and nodded.  
  
It was harder than it should have been to pry his figures open, and, thank God, that wasn’t just him. Sam’s fingers clenched convulsively on his before he could disentangle them, before he could brush a hand over Sam’s blood-smeared face and let the doctor pull him away.  
  
The doctor nodded at him and then turned back, all business, all orders, and Dean just stood there, dumb, coming about as close to prayer as he’d gotten since waiting all those months ago to see if the stupid fucking papers he’d signed would get Sam out of FREACS. He shifted his weight and resisted the urge to keep a hand on his knife as they pulled the gurney back toward surgery.  
  
One of the nurses reached forward with a pair of scissors, cutting open Sam’s mud-covered shirt. As she tugged it open, the fabric brought with it a long strip of flesh-toned tape, baring Sam’s mangled collarbone and a string of numbers.  
  
She stared, for a long moment, with the scraps hanging from her hand. And then she said, loud enough for everyone around to hear, “Oh, fuck, it’s a freak.”  
  
The room froze, some personnel turning to stare, others just stuttering to a halt. Then a completely different kind of chaos erupted.  
  
~*~  
  
There was really no good way to run into a troll.  
  
Well, John might have said that going fifty-five mph in a semi is a decent way, and Dean would have had to agree, but that’s not how Sam and Dean managed it.  
  
They’d heard rumors of something jumping strangers on the lonely highways outside of Rochester, Minnesota, and gone to check it out. The two bars Sam and Dean had hit up had been full of twitchy patrons, and the police station had been downright hostile. After a good day of searching and getting nothing as far as information or leads went, they’d decided to go slogging through the half-melted winter wonderland in the state park to see what they could find out. They left the Impala at the parking lot about a mile back, not willing to trust her wheels to the bitch of a rocky narrow road that wound into the snow-crusted forest.  
  
They found what they were looking for after a ten-minute hike down the graveled path. The bridge was a rickety thing, with rotting metal girders that didn’t rise nearly as high as interstate bridges. Even from a distance, something was off about the darkness under the bridge, something that would have given Dean the heebie jeebies even if they had come across it in the heart of summer.  
  
Then again, the troll was also a damn good giveaway.  
  
Dean had thought they were half myth, but there was no arguing about the reality of eight feet of rocky grey skin and club-like hands busy trying to eat a truck full of kids. Literal kids. Judging by the coolers and gear scattered over the slushy snow surrounding the path, not to mention the high-pitched screaming, a family of ice fishers had been trucking their gear out of the park when they were waylaid by the monster under the bridge.  
  
Dean made a note, in the part of his mind that wasn’t going  _oh shit oh shit oh shit_ , to get someone maybe more qualified than him and Sam in dealing with interdimensional portals to check that out later. Provided, of course, that they made it out alive. There was no good way to run into a troll, but Dean would have liked a few more weapons on them. A rocket launcher would have been nice.  
  
The troll had already yanked off one of the doors on the family’s rusty blue pickup, shoved it over, and had seized the father by his arm, tugging him out the window. Between the broken glass and the monster’s blunt nails and overly tight grip, there was blood everywhere, the man screaming as he fought to stay inside the cab. The children in the car were wailing and hanging onto the man as though they could keep him from being dragged into the troll’s gaping maw. The fact that they had succeeded so far was damn impressive, given the size of the monster, but soon his arm would pop off or the troll was going to lose its temper and finish smashing the vehicle to bits. Either way, no one in that metal deathtrap would survive.  
  
Dean had time to think,  _shit, we need a bigger gun_ , to come to a stop because running into that mess without a plan would only get them killed alongside the civvies, and then he realized that Sam had not stopped. Sam was running full-speed  _toward_  the mess.  
  
Dean couldn’t have said he was surprised, but that didn’t help the horror stopping his breath.  
  
Sam didn’t even try his gun, but just charged the creature, drawing his knife as he went. Dean raised his shotgun and wondered both if he had the aim to hit the thing in a sensitive spot (assuming that trolls had sensitive spots) from this distance, and  _Sam, what hell are you doing?_  followed by  _Oh fuck_  when Sam didn’t go for the body.  
  
He hit the back of the truck, scrambled onto the top and jumped straight toward the monster, driving his blade into the thing’s eye.  
  
Trolls don’t scream. The sound they made when in pain or enraged was more of a basso grumble, the first harsh rumblings of an avalanche, or a semi engine that wouldn’t catch. The beast jerked away from the attack (taking Sam’s knife with it), drawing another scream from the father.  
  
Then the scream abruptly stopped as the troll dropped the man’s arm and turned its attention to Sam.  
  
The eye that had taken the knife was bleeding, a gory mess of reddish-black fluids with the hilt of Sam’s blade jutting from the center. Sam jumped out of the way of the first swing and dropped off of the truck with the second. The troll’s arm struck the old steel of the truck, bending it inward like a man popping holes in egg cartons. The beast, following Sam with its one good eye, took a step toward him, but got distracted by Dean emptying a clip into its back.  
  
It felt it, certainly, but when it turned and bared its broad, dull teeth in Dean’s direction, all Dean saw in its lone eye was rage.  
  
“Get them out!” Sam screamed. “Take care of the civilians, I can—”  
  
Neither of them were fast enough that time. The troll’s broad arm caught Sam in the side and sent him flying twenty feet into a white-crusted pine, where he crumpled beneath a shower of needles and snow.  
  
Dean was pretty sure he was screaming. He was pretty sure that he didn’t have control, not like he needed facing off against a monster that they knew nothing about. He picked up a small shovel from the scattered supplies and made a run toward the creature as it lumbered toward Sam. The troll didn’t seem to have a lot of speed, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous. As John had said more than once: something slow and lucky can kill you just as easy as something smart and fast. Dean just hoped—prayed—that he’d imagined the snapping sound when Sam hit the tree.  
  
Dean stabbed the troll in the knee with the shovel and then backpedaled, almost falling as it swiped at his head. He was grateful to see, out of the corner of his eye, the civilians struggling to get out of the vehicle. Dean scrambled backward to lead the troll away, barely dodging the next blow. When he next caught sight of Sam, he almost sagged in relief to see him moving, dragging himself to his knees. He still wasn’t  _up_ , not really, but thank God he could move.  
  
And then Dean could have howled (and not just to attract the troll’s attention when it turned its head back to the civilians), because instead of moving  _away_  from the monster and the fight, Dean saw Sam heading back  _toward_ the battle with slow determination, one arm pressed to his side.  
  
A boulder-like fist came out of nowhere. Dean flung himself sideways, but the fist clipped him, and even the glancing blow sent him rolling, his whole body jarred, the wind knocked out of him.  
  
“Hey, you stupid freak!” That was Sam’s voice, raspy with pain and not nearly as strong as it usually was in a fight. Dean started swearing nonstop, because the monster was turning, slow as a mountain, deadly as an avalanche. “Yeah, you, rockhead, come and—” Sam broke off, but it wasn’t because of the troll. He was coughing, and Dean recognized that sound, the wet sound of something gone weird in the lungs, when ribs were poking into your organs, and Dean forced himself to his knees and then to his feet. He had to get over there. He had to get between Sam and the threat.  
  
He was in time to catch a quick glimpse of Sam bracing himself against the truck’s back end, smiling grimly (or maybe that was just a grimace) as the troll stumped toward him, the family on a limping run down the path. He saw the lighter in Sam’s hand, but not the drop.  
  
The explosion caught the troll full in the chest, and it roared, that hair-raising inhuman noise from deep within its chest. Kind of like Dean was doing, except the troll wasn’t the one screaming,  _“Sam!”_  
  
As best he could figure out later, while he was wrapping Sam up and keeping an eye on the smoldering troll just to be sure that it wouldn’t get up again, the exploding gas tank had caught the troll in the chest. Panicking, it had tried to beat it out, shoving the jagged edges of metal deeper into its own chest. After dropping the lighter into the tank, Sam had thrown himself over the edge of the bridge, using the troll’s own home as cover from the explosion that had taken it out. Dean had fumbled with 911 on his cell phone as he dragged Sam away from the disaster, his kid’s head bleeding all over the bumpy gravel path from his impact with the rocks beneath the bridge, but the civilians had already called an ambulance.  
  
Dean fought the EMTs when they tried to take Sam away without him. He completely forgot about the IDs in their pockets and stumbled over brother, cousin, sister, until finally they let him ride along in the ambulance for the drive to Methodist Hospital, in downtown Rochester. Dean held Sam’s limp hand the whole way.  
  
And then they saw the tattoo.  
  
~*~  
  
Ten minutes after the nurse’s discovery, Dean found himself trapped in a room with an enormous mahogany desk between himself and Dr. Judith Cunningham, CEO and director of Rochester Methodist Hospital. His knee wouldn’t stop bouncing, and adrenaline kept twitching his hand for the gun he’d released to the guards outside her painstakingly arranged administrative office, and neither was a great sign for the conversation to come. Dr. Cunningham, leaning forward with her arms crossed on the desk, looked as though she had bitten into a lemon the second he crossed into her domain.  
  
To the left of the desk, Dr. Kendra Thomas, the resident supernatural specialist for the hospital, sat in an armchair. She was a middle-aged black woman with a headful of thick braids tied back, and bore the demeanor of someone who knew she was the last calm before a storm. Sup-specs were a required member of every hospital’s staff, and in Dean’s experience, they ranged from overeducated eggheads jonesing for their first confirmed vamp sighting, to low-level medical personnel who had taken just enough classes to get the certification (and resultant bump in pay). They had to check every injury with any possible supernatural origin to judge its danger to the population. No facility wanted to host Patient Zero for the next big supernatural outbreak. And sometimes a facility would land itself a freak.  
  
ASC procedure was to identify, quarantine, and transport the freak to FREACS without delay. Usually, the black vans arrived at the hospital the same day.  
  
Figuring out a way to throw a wrench into “normal procedure” that wouldn’t end with him and Sam running from the law for the rest of their lives was going to be one hell of a trick.  
  
Dr. Cunningham drummed her fingers over her arm, while her expression grew even more pinched. “Tell me again exactly what kind of supernatural threat you have brought into my hospital, Mr. Winchester.”  
  
“I told you already, if you’d listened the first time, he’s ‘unidentified,’ which means the ASC never could give him a fu—a label, never showed any damn sign of being weird, much less dangerous. He’s probably less of a threat to your patients than your damn doctors, seeing as Sam doesn’t go around cutting people. He’s not contagious, outrageous, or fucking conscious right now. You better hope to hell that he’s being treated, because he ain’t done a fu—damn thing wrong.” Dean glowered at her, fingers clenching his chair’s armrests.  
  
“I don’t like your attitude or your explanation.” Dr. Cunningham looked over at Dr. Thomas. “Catch me up. What does an ASC classification of ‘unidentified’ mean?”  
  
Dr. Thomas shook her head. “It could mean pretty much anything, depending on the supernatural in question.”  
  
“Ballpark me a threat level.”  
  
“Low to moderate, most likely,” Dr. Thomas replied. “Provided this supernatural was legally released from the facility. To give you any kind of better assessment, I’m going to have to make some calls—”  
  
“You won’t,” Dean said suddenly. He was aware his voice had hit a dangerous register that was all his father’s, but it was a toss-up if people would react to Dean’s gravelly threat-voice the same way they would to John’s. Though from the way the two women were looking at him now,  _he_  might have an ASC-graded threat level (and they wouldn’t be far from wrong).  
  
He breathed in through his nose. Sam, unconscious on a fucking gurney right now, needed medical treatment to save his  _life_ , and it depended on whether Dean could keep his temper.  
  
So, with a voice in his head running a commentary on their parentages and what exactly they could do with their red tape, Dean gestured stiffly toward the ID he’d slapped face-up on the desk. “Run my credentials if you want. I’m ASC licensed and can give you references from other hunters in good standing.” Thank God for Bobby and Jim. “They’ll vouch for Sam, too. They signed his release papers.”  
  
“I’ll take those references, names and numbers,” Dr. Cunningham said immediately. “And we will need those papers.”  
  
Dean froze in reaching for the pen on the desk. “What?”  
  
Dr. Cunningham’s eyes narrowed. “The release papers you just mentioned? We’ll need those and a copy for our records, and anything else relevant to why a registered supernatural is  _here_  in my hospital instead of behind the walls of the FREACS facility. Until we hear back from the ASC and I am  _personally_  able to speak with someone who can provide a satisfactory answer to that question, that documentation is the primary criteria I will use in deciding whether my staff is safe treating him, or whether he should be here at all.”  
  
Dean stood, and both women tensed in their seats. Dean felt more than saw (the ringing in his ears made it difficult to concentrate) Cunningham’s hand shift slightly on her desk, and in another woman he would have expected her to be reaching for a gun, though her goal was probably just an intercom. But for once, Dean wasn’t thinking of combat. “Papers,” he repeated. “Yeah, I’ll...I have those.”  
  
~*~  
  
Last week, as the tall barren trees and snow-clogged fields of Iowa rolled past the Impala’s windows, Sam had asked, out of the blue, for those same papers.  
  
It took a minute for Dean to process the request.  
  
“Which papers, Sammy?” There wasn’t a lot of paper in his life (Winchesters try not to leave a trail). Did Sam mean the hunting notebook he kept under the seat, or the fake credit card info he had stacked in the trunk beside the fake IDs?  
  
“The p-papers...from camp. From F-F-FREACS. The ones you signed to g-get me out.” The stutter was more pronounced than it had been lately, and Sam’s chin was tilted slightly down, but his eyes were focused on Dean.  
  
Dean’s hand twitched, his mind going blank, only years of practice keeping them straight on the road. He couldn’t think of a response except for his own questions, until he caught Sam’s sidelong glance out of the corner of his eye. He felt the silent query in it, wondering if Dean would answer or pretend Sam hadn’t spoken at all.  
  
“Why...What brought this up?”  
  
Sam just shrugged. “If you don’t w-want me to see them, I underst—”  
  
“No, fuck, it’s not—one sec.” Dean slowed down and pulled them to the side. He took a shaky breath and hoped that it came across as thoughtful and not borderline panicked. He hadn’t thought of those papers in months, not since he’d shoved them into the glove box the day he’d sprung Sam from FREACS, before he’d beckoned Sam to take the Impala’s shotgun seat for the very first time. That memory was foggy now, like his earliest memories of Mom and Lawrence, but he remembered the sheer euphoria of that hour, even overwritten as it was by what followed that night and the next weeks.  
  
 _Fuck_ , what did Sam want with those papers?  
  
“It’s fine, I’m just...they’re in the glove box. I put them...yeah.” Dean gestured vaguely, but Sam was already opening it up, fishing the bent document envelope out of a debris of receipts and forged insurance forms. The sheath of papers he withdrew from the envelope was way more than Dean remembered. Just to give himself something to do with his hands, he put the Impala back in gear and got on the road.  
  
He’d never read them. It hadn’t mattered, not that day with Sam standing against the wall where they’d  _leashed_ him. Not when signing where he was told was the only thing stopping Dean from walking him out of there and putting as many miles between them and that shithole as possible. And in the days and weeks and months since, he’d had more important things to think about than some goddamn ASC papers. Things like  _Sam_  himself.  
  
And what the fuck did it matter if Dean hadn’t read them? He would have signed the fucking things anyway. A demon contract for his soul wouldn’t have stopped him from planting his John Hancock. Shit, he hoped the ASC hadn’t made a deal like that, or else in ten years’ time he might get a hellhound showing up on his door. No, Dean wouldn’t say sorry even if Sam found some key paragraphs of those damn papers written in a dialect of Hell.  
  
That had to be what Sam was looking for, the fine print that could bite them in the ass, the little details that, okay, maybe they should know about. But until Sam finished reading (much, much slower than his usual pace, and _what the fuck could the ASC say that could be that goddamn important_ ) and started talking, these were going to be some long. Ass. Miles.  
  
~  
  
Sam read each page slowly. The language was stilted, formal, and sometimes he re-read a section multiple times to be sure that he understood. The paperwork for removing a freak from camp was pretty standard. Not common, but there were provisions in place. Where applicable, someone had written neat notes in the margins, related to Dean’s specific situation. At one point, the document referenced an attached file for more information on “the supernatural,” but no file was attached.  
  
Dean had initialed each page. At the very bottom of the last page was Dean’s messy scrawl, directly across from the Director’s steadier, distinct signature.  
  
Sam looked at those two names for a long time before folding the papers back into their envelope. He replaced it into the glove compartment, on top of the title to the Impala that he’d glimpsed when Dean had asked him to find his spare sunglasses.  _Proof of ownership for Dean’s most beloved possessions_ , he couldn’t help but think, even while acknowledging it had come from memories of camp and the guards’ promises of what would happen when those papers were signed. Dean wouldn’t agree, but it was hard to let the thought go, especially with the cold, precise ASC terms and conditions of his release into Dean’s custody echoing in his head (the  _Director’s_ words; whether or not they’d been written by him, he had approved every word contained in that document, and Sam had read every line in his voice).  
  
Sam turned to watch the landscape flash past his window—too quick to take in, like so much of the entire real world—like all of America had been.  
  
He’d almost grown to believe that this was his, to share with Dean, forever. That it couldn’t be taken away. Distantly, he marveled at his own outward calm, hands resting in his lap, still breathing normally. That wouldn’t have been the case a few months ago. What had changed?  
  
It wasn’t that he believed Dean invulnerable from the ASC. Dean was fast and smart and always took care to keep Sam and himself safe, but there were just so  _many_  hunters in the ASC. They would never ever stop searching for them, if they wanted Sam back. If they knew Dean was being  _irresponsible_  with him.  
  
According to that contract, Dean was being pretty damned irresponsible. From giving him weaponry and education, to permitting him to interact with reals (“ _care must be taken to avoid contact between the supernatural and civilian populations, both for the protection of the citizenry and the maintenance of the supernatural’s control_ ”), Dean had been breaking the rules from day one.  
  
But he understood, now as he wouldn’t have so long ago, why Dean hadn’t kept to the terms. Dean never could have abided by what the ASC had wanted, how they had expected him to treat Sam. And as dangerous as it was—as certain as it was that, one day, they would find out that Dean had broken the rules—Sam understood that Dean could not have acted any other way.  
  
It would have been safer, yes, if Dean had bowed to the ASC’s expectations. Maybe even the Sam from four or five months ago would have preferred that  _safety_ , over the danger of disobedience.  
  
But that kind of safety was nothing compared to what he and Dean had. How he was just beginning to understand that they could be  _equals_. And, more importantly, understand that the Dean that Sam had grown to know and love, would never compromise on his belief in Sam as a  _person_  or treat him as anything less.  
  
Knowing that made the trade-off worth it. This amazing, beautiful ride might not last as long as it would have if Dean had stuck to the letter of the agreement, but Sam wouldn’t choose the other way now.  
  
~  
  
When Sam struggled back to consciousness, aware first of bright lights against his eyelids and voices in the background, he wondered blurrily if Dean was okay.  _Is he in the bathroom? What TV channel did he leave on, this isn’t Discovery..._  They weren’t in the motel they’d left; the mattress was different, the sheets were  _wrong_  in a way he couldn’t pin down through the heavy fog in his head and the stiff pressure over his collar bone and side.  
  
It had to have been one hell of a hunt. Though the details were blurred, fading, Sam knew that was the most likely reason for the pain that throbbed through half of his body. He tried to raise his hands to wipe at his gummed-up eyes, and they were caught short, just a few inches from his sides.  
  
 _No._  Sam’s eyes opened as he tried to sit up, but he couldn’t, this time stopped by a band across his chest.  
  
 _No, no, no._  
  
The voices had changed, were getting louder. They had seen him and were coming closer.  
  
 _NO._  
  
Sam tried harder to yank his hands and body free. Not because he believed it was possible, but because he couldn’t  _not_ , any more than a rat caught in a cage could stop throwing itself against the bars of the cage as it was placed in the furnace.  _They had caught him._  
  
He’d known, maybe he’d always known, but it had been clearer when he’d seen those papers, the ones that neatly laid out all the ways Dean had been too kind to him. Good as Dean was, as much  _hope_  as he had infused in Sam’s soul, the ASC would never let a freak go.  
  
Worse, fucking worse, maybe they had always had him, each fragmented memory of a life with Dean nothing but a hallucination brought on by head damage and blood loss, and Dean had never come for him after all, because no freak would be worth it.  
  
A sob wrenched through him, even as Sam yanked and yanked and yanked on the restraints. Hell was being tied to a bed (though his legs weren’t spread, his skin was not yet in flame), not sure when the pain would begin. Maybe this was Special Research already, only a prelude to the Hell where all monsters went. Maybe just the infirmary, maybe he was still a  _salvageable_  freak.  
  
Sam knew he was making sharp, desperate noises, sounds that would only excite the guards and make the Director’s mouth tighten, but he couldn’t stop himself, he couldn’t hold down the panic,  _not here, not here not here again, please fuck he would have rather died_.  
  
The world had gone white in panic. He didn’t know where they were, he couldn’t track motion, he couldn’t control himself, and when they touched him, grabbing his shoulder and arm, he screamed and kept screaming, unable to stop ( _useless, useless, just as useless to be still and silent, it was all the same_ ), until someone clamped a cloth over his mouth, a needle jabbed into his arm, and the world went black again.  
  


by [](http://quickreaver.livejournal.com/profile)[quickreaver](http://quickreaver.livejournal.com/)  


  
~*~  
  
The papers were exactly where Dean remembered, crammed into the glove box on top of the other papers and random tools. With the plain manila envelope resting in his hands, Dean took five shaky seconds to breathe before he yanked out his phone and hit Bobby’s number on speed-dial. He shoved the other crap back into the glove box with one hand while it rang.  
  
Bobby picked up on the third ring. “Singer Salvage.”  
  
“Hey, Bobby.” Dean knew his voice sounded funny, nothing he could put his finger on, but definitely fucking wrong.  
  
“Dean.” A heartbeat of a pause, and then, “What’s wrong?”  
  
“Sam’s…” Dean swallowed, forcing back the fact that he didn’t fucking  _know_  how Sam was, not without updates or being able to check on him for the past hour. “We’re in Rochester. At the hospital.”  
  
“Oh hell, what happened? Dean, what are we talking here, head injury? Possession?”  
  
Dean inhaled, one hand locked tight on the steering wheel. “A fucking troll threw him twenty feet, Bobby. I was so fucking—he’s got some broken bones. Maybe a concussion. There was a lot of blood, but I, the guy in the ambulance said shallow head wounds bleed a lot. I know that, of course I fucking know that.”  
  
“All right.” Bobby’s voice was calmer, grounding. “You did good getting him to the hospital.”  
  
Dean hit the steering wheel, hard. “Fuck, Bobby, they got him locked up somewhere, they saw the ASC tat and they won’t let me see him—they’re treating him like he’s fucking radioactive. They—” Dean pulled in another breath, forced himself to focus. “Look, that’s why I’m calling. They want to talk to an ASC representative before they’ll even treat him, and I need you—please, Bobby. Shit, they want to see his goddamn papers.”  
  
“Of course,” Bobby said quietly. “‘Course I’ll vouch for you, kid. You don’t even got to ask. You got those papers?”  
  
Dean swallowed hard, glancing at the envelope next to him. “Yeah. I gotta—I need to get back inside, the sooner the bitch that runs this joint gets these, the sooner she’ll let Sam get some goddamn medical assistance.”  
  
“Go on. I’ll stick right here by my phone, not going anywhere. And Dean?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“ _Keep your head._  Do you hear me? Whatever it takes, do  _not_  fly off the handle. Watch your language and remember that reaching for a gun can weird out civilians faster than even freaks can. You can do this, but you gotta do it right.”  
  
Dean huffed out his breath and had to consciously force his hand away from the pistol under the seat. “Yeah. Thanks, Bobby. I got it.”  
  
“Good luck,” Bobby said, and Dean hung up.  
  
Dean picked up the papers, braced himself, and pushed out of the car, into the cold, and back up toward the hospital and its fucking director. The hospital personnel let him go directly to her office. Dr. Cunningham silently took the envelope when he shoved it onto her desk.  
  
While she read, an assistant came in to check Dean’s ID, gave him a skeptical look when he presented the shiny ASC badge, and asked him if he wanted a cup of coffee before leaving with the ID in hand. Dean forced himself not to fidget. He’d already told them he was Dean fucking Winchester, were these really the only people in the damn country who didn’t recognize his goddamn name and think that maybe, yeah, he was a fucking real hunter, thank you very much?  
  
Just let her  _try_  and give him shit about Sam’s papers. Dean could stare down any fucking civvie, and he had Bobby and Pastor Jim to back him up if needed (and enough fireworks to blow this fucking place down, if it came to a jailbreak).  
  
Besides, she couldn’t accuse him of violating any of the biggest red flags. He was too much on the fucking edge to think about what would have happened if Sam had gotten hurt this bad before last week. At least now he knew what she was looking at.  
  
He’d read every damn word of those papers himself just a few hours after Sam had asked to see them, once they’d settled into a motel after dinner. Sam had stretched out on the bed with a book, and Dean had spread the papers over the small table by the window. He could feel Sam watching him, but he didn’t make a single comment.  
  
No weapons. No civilian contact. No “disobedience.” No fucking rights. Dean might not have been a fucking lawyer to figure out a damn contract, but he could read between these lines well enough to know exactly what kind of shit he’d signed. He could practically see ‘ _and don’t let them catch you fucking or torturing it_ ’ scrawled through the neatly typed paragraphs.  
  
After, the taste in his mouth bitter as blood and bile, he’d folded the damning documents back up and walked out to put them back inside the Impala. He’d never been so tempted to burn something in his life. Never so tempted without actually pulling out a lighter.  
  
When he came back in, Sam was watching him, both hands resting on the book, eyes expectant but not afraid. Dean went over and sat beside him.  
  
“So, that fucking piece of a dead tree that thinks it can tell us what we can and can’t do, what our lives are supposed to be like that, like some fucking—” Dean stopped himself and took a breath. “You need to know why we don’t listen to it?”  
  
Sam had blinked at him. “No, Dean. I know why.”  
  
“You...know?” Dammit, that shouldn’t have come out like a question, but Dean had been dreading a lot of answers. His stomach was still clenched. Part of him didn’t want to know why.  
  
“Yes.” Sam’s mouth crooked up in a smile. “You treat me like a person.”  
  
 _To you, I am a person._  
  
But now in the hospital CEO’s office, Dean was just grateful he had read the damn things and had had the presence of mind to take Sam’s weapons off of him before the paramedics showed up. Shitstorm though this was, no one could  _prove_  that he had stepped out of line, at least no one here.  
  
In the end, Dr. Cunningham folded up the papers without comment, then fixed him with a hard stare. “Mr. Winchester, I have to say that the circumstances of your arrival to Rochester Methodist raise a number of questions. Let’s start with why your supernatural was involved in an attack on a family with another supernatural in an area that has a reputation for mysterious disappearances and attacks in recent months?”  
  
Dean stared at her. It was a good thing Bobby had given him that talk about guns and cursing or he might have shot his mouth off. Or just fucking shot her. “Sam and I,” he said at last, in what he thought was a remarkably even tone, “saved the lives of that family. Sam, actually, deserves most of the credit, because he’s the one who threw himself at the troll and he’s the one who blew a fu-fudge-ton of shrapnel into its chest so those—the family could get away. Usually you’d give that kind of balls a medal.”  
  
“Very heroic,” Dr. Cunningham said, though she did not sound convinced. “But I’d still like to know why an ASC-identified supernatural was assisting a hunter in fighting  _another_  supernatural?”  
  
Again, Dean counted to ten as he stared at the woman. When he knew that the first words out of his mouth weren’t going to be related to her parentage, her intelligence, or her similarities to female dogs, he said, “Sam and I are hunters. I’m the one with the ID, but Sam’s out there in the field as much as me. He does it ‘cause he doesn’t like monsters hurting people any more than you do, than I do. He’s no more dangerous than you or me.” _Less_ , Dean thought. Less, because Sam would never hurt someone who wasn’t threatening someone else, and he couldn’t say the same about this bitch. Or himself.  
  
Dr. Cunningham sighed. “Well, Dr. Thomas will examine him, and we’ll work from her conclusions about the threat he poses to my patients and staff. And she will also check for abnormalities in his physiology that would make our standard treatments ineffective or damaging. He’s stable now,” she added. “We’re keeping him restrained and sedated, but his vitals are steady.”  
  
Dean got to his feet. “Can I talk to her?”  
  
Dr. Cunningham’s eyes narrowed, and then she took a breath and visibly relaxed her shoulders. “Dr. Thomas? After she’s done her examination.” She paused. “And in an open conference room.”  
  
~*~  
  
From behind the observation glass, gripping a clipboard tight to her chest, Dr. Kendra Thomas watched the team sedate the supernatural.  
  
She had had just a couple months of medical school under her belt when the White House Massacre rocked the nation. The science and medical communities had been particularly shaken, as one night defenestrated much of what they’d known as “fact” and “science” and opened up a lot of possibilities that no one had seriously considered before. Twenty years later, even with the help of a number of medieval documents that had shed light on the supernatural phenomenon, the situation was hardly improved.  
  
Kendra had decided on the nascent field of supernatural-related medicine shortly after the attack on the White House, in spite of her family’s and mentors’ concern. It was hard enough for a woman of color to succeed in medicine, and there was no guarantee that the new field would be practicable after the furor died down, but Dr. Thomas had rarely regretted that decision.  
  
Seven years later, she had finished her master’s in werewolf bites. She rotated through a few hospitals before landing the job of chief supernatural-specialist at Rochester Methodist.  
  
Like most resident supernatural-specs, her job was uneventful ninety-five percent of the time, and she spent a lot of time in research at the local university. The hospital called her in to examine a variety of bites or flesh wounds, anything that could have been contaminated or caused by something supernatural. Only once in the last seven years out of school had she seen and confirmed a werewolf case. The ASC had arrived within an hour of her call to whisk the werewolf away. They had also confiscated all samples, measurements, records, and bedding he might have touched or bled upon. They had been in and out in less than an hour. She’d been impressed by their efficiency.  
  
But this situation was something else entirely.  
  
The boy—it was hard not to think of him as a boy, despite all her training to stick with neutral language like  _the patient or the individual_ —had been unconscious when they’d brought him in. From the safety of a hazmat suit, she’d cleaned his head wound (abrasions from a fall and impact with a blunt object rather than teeth or claws; probably a tree, given the dirt and bark she had removed), set the broken bones, and checked for signs of hypothermia or frostbite. Blood samples had been sent to the lab for routine analysis for mysterious or supernatural-related contamination.  
  
But a nurse had seen and recognized the numbers tattooed across his chest—hard to miss, as they were right next to the broken collarbone. Impossible not to recognize, thanks to ASC messaging (PSAs or propaganda, depending on whom you asked) fifteen years ago, which had demonstrated some of the safety features built into the processing of supernaturals at the Facility for Research, Elimination, and Containment of Supernaturals. The nurse had probably been in elementary school at the time—you didn’t forget, at that age.  
  
The flow of information from the ASC about their methods had dried up after a couple years of aggressive publicity, but images like that of the FREACS inmate tattoo had circulated widely. Everyone knew that supernaturals could look just like an ordinary human, that they could even take on the likeness of any neighbor or family member—but once the ASC caught them, no monster would be able to roam freely again.  
  
Which raised the question of how this one, this  _boy_ , was walking mostly unrestricted in the company of a young man identifying himself as  _Dean Winchester_.  
  
She had looked for a likely explanation during her examination. The tattoo on his chest had been the only obvious tie to the supernatural, but it had been far from the only mark on his body.  
  
She was familiar with abuse and its tangible and intangible evidence. On a certain level, she had specialized in differentiating injuries like these, and her master’s had refined that skill, so on the map of his skin she could pick each of them out: brand, claw, blade, whip, taser. She tried not to think too hard about the kind of damage those marks entailed.  
  
She had to stop when she found the precise cigarette-burn smiley face on his arm. She had to physically stop, put his thin arm gently by his side (restrained again, in spite of the drugs) and step away. She didn’t know when those marks had been made, how vicious monsters could be to each other in FREACS, but between those marks and his underweight frame—it affected her judgment. More than it should. She had a twelve-year-old son at home who had scars of his own, and it was easy enough to imagine him lying on a similar hospital bed, anonymous and starved and hurt by those who should have protected him.  
  
This boy certainly had been hurt. But it didn’t look like Dean Winchester had inflicted the damage.  
  
And hadn’t that been a surprise, to see the legendary son of Mary Campbell-Winchester in Rochester Methodist, wild-eyed, dirty, bruised, jumpy as a spooked cat, and with a twitchy finger beside (she’d seen him flinch for his gun more than once during his meeting with Dr. Cunningham). All of that focus, all of that fear was  _for_ , rather than  _of_ , the supernatural boy lying sedated and bound in isolation.  
  
“Dr. Thomas?”  
  
She turned. Erik, one of their biggest orderlies, a formidable young man with scars of his own, was standing in the doorway. “Winchester’s here to see you. He’s in the hall. Should I…?” Erik made a gesture that could either have indicated showing him in or stabbing him.  
  
“You can show him in, thank you.” Dr. Thomas took a seat at the table in the center of the room.  
  
Dean ignored her, striding first to the observation window. Jaw clenched, he set his palm to the glass, other hand fisted by his side. Dr. Thomas watched him as she would have watched any angry and dangerous individual, with no intention of interrupting.  
  
He was so young, as young or younger that most of the undergrads who roamed her university. Too young, in many ways, to be a full-fledged hunter on his own. He seemed younger with panic draining the ferocity and tough-guy image he’d projected before.  
  
But when he at last turned to her, with a visible effort, that fire had returned. “You gotta let me in to see him.” The plea was desperate, sincere, and not really a request.  
  
Dr. Thomas motioned to the chair across from her. “We need to talk first.”  
  
A flash of anger crossed his face, but he tamped it down, smoothing his expression down into something more stoic. Slowly, he walked over to the chair and took a seat.  
  
“I know who you are, and you’ve presumably learned about me, but introductions may be helpful to start again.” Dr. Thomas folded her hands over her clipboard. “I’m Dr. Kendra Thomas, supernatural specialist for Rochester Methodist and research associate at the University of Minnesota.”  
  
“Dean Winchester.” He bit out the words grudgingly; he clearly didn’t like admitting who he was. He jerked his head toward the window. “That’s Sam Winchester.”  
  
Dr. Thomas wanted very much to ask what the relation was, but she held back. Considering who he was, the question was bound to be offensive. Instead she asked, "How old is Sam?"  
  
"Sixteen.” He grimaced a little. “Seventeen in May."  
  
She blinked in surprise. "How do you know his birthday?"  
  
Dean glared at her. "I looked it up. I asked. They keep records."  
  
 _They_  must be the Agency for Supernatural Control. Dr. Thomas had a hundred follow-up questions— _How long had Dean known Sam? How did they meet? Why take him out of FREACS?_ —but she kept them behind her teeth. He was already rattled and antagonistic, and a smart woman would stick to the necessary points.  
  
“I'm only trying to get a complete picture of who Sam is and how he came to be here. The sooner I understand that, the sooner we can treat and release him. Dr. Cunningham has informed me that your papers are authentic—no one's challenging your rights here.”  
  
Dean drew in a long breath, rubbing his face and pushing his fingers through his hair. Then he straightened up and met her eyes—still strained, but more focused. "What do you need to know?"  
  
Dr. Thomas picked up her pen. "When was he released from FREACS?"  
  
"Last summer," Dean said quietly, and swallowed. "July of 1999."  
  
Less than a year, then. "His ID number is 88UI6703. That verifies what you've told us, as far as him being unidentified. The first two numerals indicate the year he was admitted—1988? Is that correct?"  
  
Dean nodded stiffly.  
  
"But that was—" Dr. Thomas glanced into Sam's room again, feeling bewildered. "If he's sixteen now, he would have been...."  
  
"Five. Yeah." Turning her head, Dr. Thomas caught his expression: hard again with anger, but edged with grief and pain.  
  
She chose her next question carefully. "Do you know why Sam was admitted to FREACS, Dean?"  
  
His jaw jumped. "No."  
  
"They didn't even tell you when they released him to you? That seems like poor planning."  
  
Dean snorted, rubbing his forehead again. "Well, they’re not hiring from Mensa, I can tell you that much.”  
  
“I’m going to have to take you at your word that he’s shown no sign of supernatural ability while in your care.” She had worked with hunters before. A phrase like  _take you at your word or on your honor_  tended to either piss them off or read as exactly their due. Dean took it with another tight nod. “Has he had any medical treatment before? There are some signs of severe malnourishment, though not recently."  
  
Anger—not directed at her—and guilt flashed across Dean’s face, and he shifted in his chair. "When I first got him out, I wanted… Sam didn’t want to see a doctor. Like,  _really_  didn’t want to, like he might actually stop breathing if I made him.” Dean glanced at Sam through the window. “So I stitched him up, when other hunts went bad. He had the flu once, and I took care of him. Nothing came out of him that doesn't come out of me when I feel like shit."  
  
Dr. Thomas hesitated. This last could be pushing it, but she’d needed to know since she saw the anti-possession sigil tattooed on Sam’s chest. She almost never saw something like that unless it was a hunter under her hands. "Was the purpose of retrieving him from FREACS to hunt with you?"  
  
Dean lunged to his feet, making a sound very close to a growl, and her fingers clenched on the clipboard on her desk. Maintaining eye contact, she prepared to spring for the panic button on the wall if he lunged. After a moment, he sat back down, fists clenched on his knees and jaw locked. “Yeah,” he lied through his pretty even teeth. “That’s why.”  
  
Dr. Thomas stared at him, heart still pumping fast. “Yes, you got him out to hunt with you?”  
  
“Yep.” Dean looked like he might rupture something critical as he said it, but he didn’t blink. She didn’t think he was usually a bad liar, but if anyone believed that delivery, she would eat her stethoscope. “I’m a hunter. I hunt. But I wanted Sam, too, because he’s smart and fast and cares about people enough to do stupid shit like throw himself bare-handed at a troll to keep it from stomping all over that truck of kids. And I didn’t fucking  _want_  him to do that, though I’d’ve done that too. I  _want_  to keep him alive, okay? There’s not one fucking thing supernatural about him, and he didn’t belong in that camp, not when the worst fucking thing he’s ever wanted to do is save people.”  
  
Dr. Thomas blinked rapidly and pretended to mark something on her clipboard. That hadn’t been a standardized question and, fortunately for the young man before her, she was under no obligation to record his answer. “Thank you for your cooperation. I may have more questions for you later as more information—”  
  
“Can I fucking see him now?”  
  
His patience seemed all used up. That was okay, she was rapidly losing her stomach for this line of questioning as well. “Yes. We have protective gear if you—”  
  
Dean had already bolted directly to the door that led into the isolation room and just threw her a dirty look when she mentioned the gear. She hadn’t expected him to  _want_  it, but felt professionally obliged to offer. His expression grew darker still when the door wouldn’t budge.  
  
It felt dangerous to walk up beside him, to leave vulnerable wrists and body exposed within striking distance while she keyed open the door. But he didn’t hang around to take out the anger and impatience boiling under his skin. As soon as the lock clicked open, Dean Winchester was through the door and to the bedside of his charge.  
  
~*~

Sam had looked unconscious through the window, lying goddamn still with his head turned away.  
  
But as Dean rounded the bedside, he saw Sam’s eyes were partially open, staring at nothing.  
  
Dean had seen Sam’s face that blank exactly once before: that day years ago, when Sam had sat down before him in the interrogation room. Though even then, he’d been able to stare at his hands. Now...  
  
“Sammy, Sam, hey. Hey, I’m here.” Dean grabbed his hand, but recoiled when he felt the cuff strapping Sam’s wrist to the side rail. “Fuck—what the fuck did they—” He stopped himself, trying to rein in climbing panic and fury. He  _wasn’t_  going to lose it, especially not now. He struggled to undo the strap, but couldn’t release it: the ends were clamped shut by a fucking lock and it wasn’t like a padlock he could just smash off or pick. _Motherfucking sonofabitch…_  
  
He had to focus. Focus on what was important, which was comforting Sam. Even though he didn’t fucking know how. This, all of this, was exactly what Dean had sworn would never happen—and now, with every pretense of safety collapsing around them, Dean couldn’t get the fucking straps off Sam’s wrists.  
  
At least Dean was in the fucking room now, and they were alone, even if Dr. Thomas was sure as hell watching them from behind that goddamn glass. Dean pulled up a chair and sat facing Sam. He hadn’t moved his head at all since Dean had arrived. “Sammy, I’m—I fucked up, and I can’t even start making that up to you, but look—we’re going to get out of here asap and drive real fucking far away, I promise you that, and whatever else you want or need, we’ll get it. I mean it.” Swallowing wasn’t usually this painful, not unless he was sick. Fucking hospitals. “Sammy, can you hear me? Just, you don’t gotta talk to me, just  _look_  or something,  _please_.”  
  
For a long minute, nothing. Then Sam blinked once. That could have been nothing, but Sam’s gaze shifted, away from that god-awful  _nothing_ , toward Dean.  
  
Dean’s breath caught, and he squeezed Sam’s hand. Not much, but he’d take it. “Hey, Sammy,” he said again, and hoped his voice didn’t sound as strangled to Sam as it did to him. “I’m—I’m here. Not going anywhere until we get you out, as quick as I can, I swear.” Promises cheap and hollow as an empty bottle of beer flung into a barroom corner, but Dean had nothing else to offer.  
  
Sam’s hand didn’t so much as twitch within Dean’s, and the blankness didn’t flicker. For all Dean knew, Sam hadn’t even recognized him. But Sam’s eyes stayed on him, which was something. Everything.  
  
Then Sam spoke—or, more accurately, his lips moved, and Dean bent close to hear. “...They won’t let you.”  
  
Dean jerked away and stared down at Sam’s face. Twelve hours ago, Sam had carried the quiet confidence he’d learned through the last few months. Dean couldn’t see a shred of that now. He had begun to understand the blankness that had taken its place. He remembered that look, that hopelessness, that bleakest despair, from Freak Camp.  
  
Then Sam swallowed and said, with a terrible quiet anguish, “They took my clothes.”  
  
 _Oh, fuck_. Dean rocked back in his chair, even as his hand on Sam’s tightened. He hadn’t at first taken in the significance of Sam in that goddamn paper-thin hospital gown, but now he had to swallow hard to keep from being sick.  
  
Finally, Dean took a shaky breath. “I’ll get them back for you.”  
  
Nothing in Sam’s face changed. Why should it? Dean had done nothing to prevent this outcome, why should Sam have the smallest confidence that he could make it right, now?  
  
The door swung open, and Dean jumped. Sam’s hand twitched in Dean’s, and his eyes squeezed shut.  
  
The nurse stood stiffly in her heavy protective gear, face guarded behind the clear plastic visor. “I need to check his vitals.”  
  
It wasn’t exactly asking permission, but she didn’t move any closer either. Dean looked at Sam, but his eyes were closed, head rigidly turned away. Dean nodded stiffly to her, and she approached, lay two fingers of her gloved hand on the inside of Sam’s wrist, and lifted her other arm to see her watch. Sam kept his eyes squeezed shut; Dean wasn’t even sure if he was breathing, which probably wouldn’t be good for her measurements.  
  
Then the door opened again, and Dr. Thomas, also wearing the protective gear, looked into the room. “Is Sam awake? The director wants to speak with him.”  
  
All at once, Sam came alive. His whole body jerked, his grip almost crushing Dean’s fingers. “No,” he gasped, turning to Dean with wild eyes, snapping his wrists against the restraints. “No, he can’t—he won’t—Dean, run! Run, you have to run you have to go you have to— _RUN!_ ”  
  
“Sammy, it’s not—” Dean reached for him, trying to calm him down, but he almost got punched. Sam grabbed his arm as well as he could with the restraints and pulled him down, only to shove him away. He was almost sobbing, pulling so hard against the bonds that his back arched and the thick restraints turned the skin around his wrists white with pressure.  
  
“He’s—stop, Sam,  _stop_.” Dean looked up, about to ask the nurse to let him go, to help him, but she had backed up to the wall, staring at Sam in horror, one hand clutching a cross at her throat.  
  
“Run,” Sam gasped, voice already a rasp, a restrained scream, eyes blown wide. “Go, window, door, run, I’ll—please, Dean, don’t stay, don’t watch, don’t let him, d-don’t.” He pulled at the straps one more time, muscles bunching beneath the thin gown. “ _Run._ ”  
  
Dean stared at Sam, mouth dry, his own heart pounding double-time. He had never seen Sam this panicked. In the early months, Sam had often been afraid or distraught to the point of tears over some hurdle—but this was different. This fear wasn’t abstract or unknown; it had  _certainty_. Whatever Sam was afraid of now, he had faced before.  
  
Sam, who didn’t flinch before jumping yetis or giant spiders or goddamn  _trolls_ , was terrified. And that scared Dean more than anything had since his first surprise solo hunt at age eleven.  
  
But he couldn’t quite figure how the thing driving Sam wild, half-crazed with fear now, begging Dean to save himself, was...Judith Cunningham? Had he missed something?  
  
Dr. Thomas moved swiftly to Sam’s side, one hand running a specialized EMF scanner over his body, the other taking hold of his arm (light, not rough, still not what Sam needed) as she spoke in a calm, firm voice.  
  
“Sam, calm down, you’re just aggravating your injuries. We’re here to help. What’s wrong? Is something hurting you?”  
  
“He doesn’t need you touching him,” Dean snapped, leaning across the bed to shove her hand off. “I’ll calm him down—”  
  
And then the door burst open, and Dr. Cunningham strode through, eyes narrowed, two armed security personnel escorting her. “I thought you said he was borderline catatonic?”  
  
“He  _was_  calm,” Dr. Thomas said tersely. “I just told them you were coming, and he freaked out.”  
  
Sam went quiet between one scream and the next, staring at the short, stocky woman in her neat suit. “D-Director?” And then his eyes rolled up in his head, and he collapsed back against the bed.  
  
Dr. Cunningham stared at Sam's prone body with thinned lips; then she shook her head sharply and turned back to the door. "I need to speak to speak to both of you."  
  
Dr. Thomas caught Dean's eye and jerked her head for him to follow. He gritted his teeth, looking at Sam, but Sam was completely out. He still didn't want to leave—what if Sam woke while he was gone, still terrified and fighting and so fucking helpless?—but it didn’t seem like he had much of a choice.  
  
Cunningham headed toward her office, but she was stopped by a nurse halfway down the hall. The nurse glanced at Dean and Dr. Thomas, then back to Cunningham. “Doctor, there’s a patient at the nurse’s station who wants to talk to the hunters who came in with him. He shouldn’t even be out of bed yet, but he got in a wheelchair and his wife brought him over, they’re very insistent.”  
  
Cunningham shot a glare back at Dean, then nodded to the nurse. “All right, then, let’s see what he wants.”  
  
They found him white-faced in a wheelchair, one arm in a sling, bandages forming a patchwork over his face and neck. A tall woman with red-rimmed eyes stood behind the chair.  
  
Dean wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a line-up, but the man’s eyes widened and he raised his hand as soon as he saw Dean. “Him,” he said, “that’s the hunter who saved me and my kids. He and the skinny boy.”  
  
Dean winced. Even though the cat had long since shredded the bag at Rochester Methodist, it never felt good to be outed as a hunter in public. On a research mission, that could clam up the contacts. Surrounded by monsters, that could get you killed. With the nurses behind the counter stopping to watch and Cunningham looking like she wanted to light him on fire, this felt more like the second scenario.  
  
Forcing a little smile on his face, Dean gave the civilians a little wave. “Nah, just in the right place at the right time, anyone would have done it,” he said loudly, then moved off into an empty room, hoping they would follow him. He appreciated a good word as much as the next guy (okay, maybe less because of the whole incognito thing), but he really didn’t want to do this in public.  
  
The couple was Jane and Alex Hoffman. Alex was a sallow, middle-aged man with long gangly limbs and thinning hair. By the look of him and his rapidly-blinking eyes, he was a desk worker whose biggest outdoor experience was the semi-annual fishing trip with the boys. Dean introduced himself as “Dean, just Dean, no last name. Makes it harder for the monsters to find you.”  
  
“Yes, of course,” Alex rasped. “I’m sorry, I’ve heard that hunters like to stay undercover, but I had to see you, I had to thank you in person, I couldn’t—”  
  
“It’s...I’m just doing my job. Glad it didn’t turn out worse.” Though Dean personally felt it couldn’t get much worse than this (but Sam was going to live, he was going to be okay, they’d get past this). For Sam’s sake, and the sake of everything he had risked, Dean supposed he should be glad that not everything had ended up a shitstorm.  
  
“But it  _is_  everything—you saved not just my life, but my two sons, and my nephews—the whole clan.” He offered a feeble smile. “But where’s—the other boy, the one with you, who struck that...that thing first?”  
  
“Sam’s getting patched up,” Dean said curtly. “Got kinda beat up, but he’ll pull through.” He didn’t look at either of the doctors, but he silently dared them to say anything about Sam’s past or tattoo. Just let them  _try_.  
  
Alex shook his head in disbelief. “It all happened so quickly, I can’t remember much… But I can still see the way he  _leaped_  onto the truck to stick that knife in the creature’s eye…” Alex shuddered. “I’ve heard about heroism like that, but I’d never actually seen it before today. I wanted to shake his hand and say thank you.”  
  
Dean swallowed hard, but managed to say, “That’s Sam.”  
  
“You can’t see him at the moment,” Cunningham said. She glanced at Dean, and then met the patient’s eyes. “His condition won’t allow visitors who aren’t family.”  
  
Dean nodded stiffly toward her, then addressed Alex. “I’ll tell him for you.”  
  
~*~  
  
Alice Campbell (twenty-seven, brunette, better with a firearm than with makeup) was playing solitaire at her desk (old-fashioned cards; she liked computers, but there was something comforting and pleasantly untraceable about the weight of the cards shifting through her fingers), when the alarm at her elbow sounded.  
  
Swearing under her breath, Alice dropped her stack of cards and checked the message. Someone had flashed their ASC badge in a hospital just inside Rochester, Minnesota. She almost shut off the alarm and finished her game (they had to follow up on all notices, and she  _would_  because the work the family did was important, but not always urgent). But then, dutifully, she keyed in a query for the badge.  
  
Holy  _shit_ , Dean fucking Winchester.  
  
The Winchesters (John, Dean, and Mary Campbell) were practically mythical in hunter circles, and especially for Campbells: the woman whose death had marked the dawn of a new age of supernatural awareness in the world; the civilian who became a hunter because of her; and the child of that union, said to be as fierce as his mama and stubborn as his old man. Winchesters were like ghosts; no matter how good you were, they could stay a couple steps ahead.  
  
Some people had suggested that Winchester Sr. had made a deal that no self-respecting hunter would in order to stay out of the Campbell radar the way he had for the last twenty years, and that the son had inherited the gift. Alice had to admit that, after seeing a few old photographs of the Winchester family vehicle (a 1967 Chevrolet Impala would not have been her first choice for going under the radar. It wouldn’t have made the top seventy, honestly), she was inclined to believe that either Winchesters were damn clever sons of bitches or luckier than sin.  
  
In addition to being sneaky and extremely averse to using his ASC badge, Dean Winchester was listed as a high priority (of the “I want to know everything going on in this person’s life and talk to them at the next opportunity” kind) on Director Jonah Campbell’s list.  
  
Alice found herself grinning. In addition to admiring the way Jonah Campbell had taken a mishmash of hunters and styles and created a streamlined efficiency out of them, she had always appreciated the times her cousin Jonah helped her out, whether with some well-placed advice to help her through basic hunter training or hiring her for this job. Most people wanted to make Director Campbell happy, but she honestly liked being able to help.  
  
It didn’t hurt to get noticed by the higher ranks of the ASC, either. Her current position of Regional Public Relations Manager was a new one, but an important job overseeing responses to complaints about the ASC and dealing with (and preventing, when possible) any unpleasant incidents. There had already been rumors of redirecting her work to Capitol Hill. Which was good, because frankly, she didn’t want to be stuck chasing down idiots waving fake ASC badges, amulet forgeries, and freaks on a case-by-case basis.  
  
A Winchester sighting was at least exciting. And worth a trip outside the office.  
  
She swept up the cards, dumped them in her bag (just a large purse barely on the good side of elegant and feminine, with room for her semi-automatic, salt, lighter, and a few other necessities), typed a quick update to the Director, and then picked up her phone to book a flight to Minnesota.  
  
~*~  
  
After Cunningham and Dr. Thomas convinced the Hoffmans to go back to their room, the hospital kicked Dean out for the remainder of the night.  
  
“Go get some sleep and a bite to eat,” Dr. Thomas told him. “You can’t do anything more for Sam right now.”  
  
Dean disagreed, but he knew they weren’t giving him a choice. Exhaustion was hitting him now like a dropped piano, and he suspected that if he tried to stand his ground, getting dragged out by security guards would just look pathetic.  
  
He made Dr. Thomas promise not to let anyone into Sam’s room besides herself and the night nurse, and she agreed. Then Dean went to the Impala, made a quick trip through a McDonald’s drive-through, and returned to the hospital parking lot. He shoved food into his mouth without tasting any of it, and when the greasy hamburger and thin fries were gone, he punched the speed dial for Bobby’s.  
  
“Hey, how’s Sam?”  
  
Dean rubbed at his forehead. “Not good. Not fucking good.” He summarized, in choppy detail, his conversation with the hospital director and supernatural-specialist, and his too-brief visit with Sam before his panic attack and Cunningham’s arrival. It was hard to describe that part, because he still didn’t understand Sam’s reaction himself.  
  
When Dean finished, there was silence, followed by a long exhalation. “Aw, hell.”  
  
“We can’t.” Dean had to swallow before finishing. What he was saying didn’t really make sense, but he had to say it anyway. “We can’t do this again, Bobby.”  
  
“What?” Bobby asked suspiciously. “A troll hunt?”  
  
“No, this—” Dean fisted his hand on his thigh. “Putting him through this at the hospital. They  _tied him down_ , Bobby. Treating him like he’s—I  _promised_  him it wouldn’t happen to him again. Ever.”  
  
Bobby sighed again. “You think big, kid. That’s a hell of a promise to make to anyone.”  
  
“I’m serious, Bobby. I need to know how we can stop this happening again.”  
  
“Retire?”  
  
Dean groaned, letting his head fall back against the window. “Besides  _that_.”  
  
“There ain’t nothing besides  _that_. You’re hunters.” If anything, Bobby’s voice was even quieter, gruff enough to take the finish off an old chair. “You can take bets on when you two are going to end up injured again, but it’s gonna happen. And sometimes that’s going to land you with the bonesaws.”  
  
Dean knew Bobby was right. He’d known there wasn’t any way around it, but he’d had to ask. “Can we...can we swing past your place? I’m...as soon as Sam’s cleared for check out, we’re going, I don’t think that he’s okay here,” and Dean knew he sure as fuck wasn’t, either, “but I don’t think that he can make it all the way back to Boulder.”  
  
“Hell, for a reason like that, you could stop at Jim’s,” Bobby said. “He’s got the crappiest guest room I’ve ever had the misfortune to try to catch shut-eye in, but his couch is damn nice for a recovery. I’ll give him a call. You get some shut-eye.”  
  
“Thanks, Bobby.” Dean snapped the phone shut and hunkered down on the bench seat, staring up at the headliner of the Impala in the light of the parking lot. Close by, he could hear the growing siren of an ambulance, bringing another sorry soul in.  
  
~*~  
  
Early the next morning, Dean met Dr. Thomas outside the isolation ward. She looked tired, too, though unlike Dean, she’d changed more than her shirt. She gestured Dean toward her office.  
  
He didn’t move. “I want to see Sam.”  
  
“He’s sleeping.” She gestured more emphatically.  
  
Dean gritted his teeth, not buying it, but he went.  
  
Dr. Thomas sat down, picked up her coffee mug, drained it, then frowned at the bottom. “Would you like some coffee?”  
  
“No.” Not now, anyway. Coffee would come later.  
  
She set the mug down. “Sam’s collarbone break is almost directly in the middle, and the ends are aligned—which is lucky, as otherwise it would require surgery. He’s going to need a sling for six to eight weeks. Ice packs applied for twenty-minute intervals may help with the pain and swelling for both the collarbone and his three fractured ribs. Over-the-counter pain meds, such as Tylenol, Advil, or Aleve, are essential for managing the pain, especially for his ribs. He needs to be able to breathe normally and cough lightly, as that will prevent lung infections. Do you understand?”  
  
Dean blinked at her. Maybe he should have taken the offer for coffee after all. “Is this…?”  
  
She held up a packet of papers. “Here are some handouts, they’ll tell you what to expect. It’s highly important that he see a bone specialist over the course of his recovery, to ensure nothing’s out of place. Physical therapy would also be beneficial. If you can find those resources outside of a hospital, I emphatically advise you to make use of them, for his sake.”  
  
Maybe if he’d accepted the coffee, he wouldn’t have cotton balls in his ears now. “Are you—kicking us out?”  
  
Dr. Thomas sat back. “I’m recommending him for early discharge. It’s highly unorthodox, but this is an unorthodox situation, and I believe it’s for the best. For everyone.” Her expression softened slightly as Dean stared. “Particularly for Sam. Staying in this hospital is only going to worsen his condition, and that defeats the purpose. If you can provide him with the care he needs over the next couple of months, including other doctors to monitor the healing process, that would be the best option.”  
  
Dean realized he was gaping. He shut his mouth and tried to get his brain back online, find a little focus so he could be  _sure_  he was reading this right. “I, uh—that would be awesome. But what...what’s the catch?”  
  
Dr. Thomas blinked at him. “Catch? I’m not sure what you mean. This is a recommendation for early checkout. You don’t have to come back here for any follow-ups.”  
  
“Yeah, but…” Dean groped for the right question. “Does Cunningham know?”  
  
“She isn’t involved in discharge decisions,” Dr. Thomas said coolly, “but I’m sure she’ll be relieved to learn she no longer has an identified supernatural in her hospital. Is there a problem?”  
  
“No, no no no, we’ll be out of here before your next refill. Just, uh.” He hesitated, the next words awkward in his mouth. “Thanks. For thinking of Sam.”  
  
Dr. Thomas nodded curtly, then pushed the papers across to him. “Review these and let me know if you have any questions. If you tell me where you’re headed, I could see if I have colleagues in the area who would understand the situation. Oh, also—the lab is rushing his blood work, but the results won’t be done until later today at the earliest. Here’s my card—you can call me later this week for the results.”  
  
Dean folded the papers around the card and stood up. “I appreciate it, doc.”  
  
A little under an hour later, without so much as a glimpse of Dr. Cunningham, Dean was helping Sam out the door of the hospital. He knew it wasn’t possible for Sam to have lost a ton of weight in under twenty-four hours, but he felt as thin and fragile as he did in those brutal first weeks in Boulder. Or it was Sam’s posture, how he wouldn’t look at anyone, hadn’t spoken more than a couple of syllables to Dean as Dean got him out of the restraints and helped him change into actual goddamn clothes, and as the nurse adjusted the sling for his right arm.  
  
Sam was white as a sheet and breathing shallowly by the time Dean got him into the Impala’s shotgun seat, clutching an ice pack to his side despite the cold outside. Dean had pulled out their spare coats and blankets to drape over Sam’s shoulders and legs, but he still cast him a worried glance as he started the engine. No way they’d make hundreds of miles today, as much as he wanted to put distance between them and the hospital. He’d have to take Bobby’s advice, see what Pastor Jim could do for them, because Sam needed somewhere _safe_  for the next few weeks at least, and he needed it ASAP.  
  
~*~  
  
Alice arrived in Rochester late in the morning after catching an early flight out of D.C. She’d booked the red-eye the night before, but a weather delay had kept that one on the ground, and flashing the ASC badge wouldn’t have done a damn thing to speed up the process. Besides, showing the badge was just showing their hand, Director Jonah always said, and sent civilians into a panic besides. Though a couple times through the interminable lines, she really wanted to.  
  
At least the rental car in Rochester was ready to go, and less than an hour after landing, she was at Rochester Methodist.  
  
She did flash the badge at the front desk, this being official business. “I’m Alice Campbell, with the ASC. I got a report that you had a supernatural incident which brought in a freak. I’m going to need to see that freak and also Hunter Dean Winchester.”  
  
The receptionist gave her a wide-eyed look. “Oh—let me—I’ll call Dr. Thomas right away.” She picked up the phone, and Alice resisted the temptation to tap her foot. Arrogance was important for the Campbell image, but it could backfire too, and if she wanted to succeed in public relations, it would be good not to alienate too many staffs.  
  
A second later, a heavy black woman strode through the doors. “You’re the ASC representative?” she asked, offering her hand. “I’m Dr. Kendra Thomas, sup-spec for Rochester Methodist.”  
  
“Alice Campbell, Regional Public Relations Manager,” Alice replied. “I need to see Hunter Winchester and the freak he brought in immediately.”  
  
The woman’s mouth tightened. “You’re going to have to speak to Dr. Cunningham.” Nodding for Alice to accompany her, she turned back for the doors. Irritated, Alice followed.  
  
Cunningham was the typical curt executive in her fifties, with no patience for distractions from the usual business of her day. She also seemed to know why Alice was there. “I can’t help you,” she said unapologetically. “Winchester and his supernatural left without clearing the front desk three hours ago.”  
  
Alice blinked. “Excuse me?”  
  
“They weren’t discharged,” Dr. Thomas explained. “They left anyway. Preliminary examination showed that the supernatural wasn’t a threat. Actually, it seems like he was instrumental in saving the lives of—”  
  
“If Winchester’s gone, I need to know everything,” Alice said, cutting her off. “All your reports, all your notes, any surveillance footage you have. I need access to all your records and a list of personnel who interacted with them, and all this in a place where I can set up.”  
  
Neither Cunningham nor Thomas seemed particularly pleased about that, but Cunningham nodded without argument. “Of course we’ll assist however we can.” The two women exchanged a glance (Cunningham angry, Thomas defensive) that implied more was going on than Alice could parse this early into the game.  
  
It took a day and a half to get everything she wanted, poring over the records of the hospital visit, interviewing the victims of the troll hunt, talking to the staff to get their impressions of Winchester and his behavior around the freak. She had more than one interview with Thomas, who was definitely hiding something, but the best that Alice could figure was that for a supernatural specialist, she had something of a soft spot for the monster that Winchester had brought in.  
  
When she found out all that she could, she called Director Jonah.  
  
“Cousin.” His voice was fond, precise, confident. “What do you have for me?”  
  
Wishing it was more, Alice outlined the hunt and the steps the hospital had taken to contain the supernatural, her inferences about Winchester’s behavior (he had a soft spot for his pet monster as well), the general impressions that both had been in good health and had apparently been hunting. She passed along the results from the blood work (frustratingly incomplete due to some incompetence in the lab), their injuries, and how shortly before her arrival they had left.  
  
Alice concluded with her recommendation that a squad be sent out to make sure the troll was actually dead (they could get up after a lot of damage, and even if they didn’t, that corpse would be valuable for study; the existence of trolls had been debated for years) and that there was nothing more to learn where she was.  
  
Director Jonah listened carefully,  _hmmm_ ed, asked a couple careful questions, and at the end thanked her.  
  
“Keep an eye on those alerts for Dean Winchester,” he said. “Actually, keep an eye on both Winchesters.”  
  
“Should I flag anything in particular, sir?” she asked.  
  
“No, nothing in particular. You’ve done well,” Jonah said. “Hopefully you will be faster next time. Thank you for taking such care on this visit. Get back to D.C.” He hung up before she could respond.  
  
Alice replaced the receiver and sat back in her appropriated office, staring out at the wintry parking lot. Next time, she would be faster.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to anotheroracle, firesign10, and sylvia_locust for the top-notch beta help.
> 
> Thank you to quickreaver for the magnificent fanart.

Pastor Jim rattled the key dramatically and threw open the door. “Take a good look around, boys, because you’ve got to leave it cleaner than this when you leave, or I’m never getting a plate of Linda’s brownies again. And I will pass that sadness down the line.”  
  
Sam and Dean stepped cautiously over the threshold while Pastor Jim beamed at them. The living room held a handful of second-hand chairs in good condition, and a massive, ornate table that seemed to have ended up in the three-room cabin by accident. Fawns and ducks cavorted across the wallpaper, and the few knickknacks scattered on the mismatched coffee tables followed the forest-creature theme. The cabin had the air of a place that wasn’t lived in, but kept tidy for guests.  
  
Pastor Jim strode in after them, opening the blinds and fiddling with the thermostat next to the kitchenette. “Not that you shouldn’t make yourselves at home,” he added. “Linda and Jim—no relation—hibernate in Florida now, I doubt they’ll get back to these parts before May. Most of their grandkids live down south now, too. You know Jim—Jim Jr., that is, about my age, we used to call him Pinkie, thank the Lord he grew out of that nickname—he’s about the closest, living in St. Paul, but he can’t make it over here much either, since the divorce. He’s got two little kids, and as much as it’s fun to see Grandma and Grandpa, he can’t really take the time, you know?”  
  
He moved toward the kitchen, and Sam and Dean drifted after him like buoys bobbing in his wake. “Anyway, this place is just for fun, since Jim and Linda also have a nice place in town. They don’t mind a couple friends of mine catching their breath here for a few weeks, especially since I took care of a restless spirit in the lake out back sometime in the early ‘90s. Keep an eye on that, by the way—I swear I see weird ripples every time I come up, but Jim insists it’s nothing, so it’s hard to say if I should be worried, or if it’s just the old instincts acting up.”  
  
“We’ll watch for it,” Dean interjected, as Jim started going through the cupboards. Jeez, he’d forgotten how much the pastor  _talked_. Pastor Jim hadn’t drawn more than a couple of deep breaths since he met them at a comfortable family restaurant in the middle of Fairmont, a town only half an hour from Blue Earth, and a few sizes bigger. He had told them about his friends’ cabin, where he said Sam and Dean would be far more comfortable, have some room to breathe, rather than be cooped up in his own guest room for as long as they might need to heal. Jim had kept up an easy chatter all through lunch, which, distracting and frustrating as it could be at times, had been a blessing with Sam still looking a little pale and shell-shocked, moving gingerly with his arm in a sling. Sam hadn’t said much during the meal, but Jim had addressed most of his comments to both of them, not seeming to require much of a response.  
  
“Just what I figured,” Jim announced with his head in the refrigerator. “What you’ve got in here is half a jar of olives, all the condiments you need—plus horseradish, which no one needs—and two dozen frozen hamburger patties, which, while passable, aren’t particularly good for growing children who want to avoid rickets. You also have half a box of pasta, a can of green beans, and a bag of mostly solidified marshmallows. Sam, you want to settle in and unpack while Dean and I head over to Fareway on a food run?”  
  
Sam looked up, his eyes wide and startled in his pale face, and something in Dean’s chest constricted. He hadn’t seen that lost, hollow look on Sam’s face—or the body language that radiated vulnerability and fear—since, well, probably the last time they’d met Pastor Jim. Life wasn’t fucking  _fair_ , because if they’d run into Jim _before_ that damn troll, Jim could’ve seen the awesome, confident, kickass person Sam had really become.  
  
Three days ago, Sam would have probably glanced at Dean before answering the question himself, even if it came from a stranger. Now, he just turned his face toward Dean, pleading with the minimal eye contact he dared. Dean forced a smile, and it hurt. “You’ll be okay, right? We’ll be quick, and you can take a breather in some peace and quiet.” He knew that Sam had been struggling to find a comfortable position in the Impala and to hide his wince every time they hit a bump in the road.  
  
Only when Sam swallowed and reflexively checked for the exits (windows, doors, chimney) did Dean think maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned the vulnerability.  
  
Jim spoke before Dean could. “This place is as safe as I could make it. Jim and Linda had the money to reinforce it against ghosts and supernatural threats after they found out what was in the lake. The door can take a battering ram for about eight minutes, the windows are double-paned and tempered, there’s salt and iron laid in the filigree around the foundation, and there’s a civilian-style panic room in the basement.” Jim didn’t glance at Dean, nor did he offer his reassurances to him. He spoke directly to Sam. “Dean and I are the only people who are going to be coming up this road at this time of year, and we’re only going so you’ll have food. You’re safe here.”  
  
“I got my cell phone,” Dean said quietly, and pulled it out to glance at the screen. “Three bars left, too.”  
  
Sam took a breath and nodded quickly, his jaw set. “I...I c-can unpack.”  
  
~*~  
  
Dean handed Sam the keys to the Impala and listened to him turn the locks inside the cabin before getting into Jim’s truck. As they pulled back onto the snow-crusted gravel road, Dean exhaled and sagged back against his seat.  
  
Jim glanced at him, quick and sharp. “That so?”  
  
Dean kept his eyes on the road. “Goddamn hospital. If you’d seen him right before this—you wouldn’t have fucking recognized him. I’m telling you, you wouldn’t have.”  
  
“Bobby told me, after Christmas,” Jim said mildly.  
  
Dean glanced at him, surprised. “Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah, we catch up now and then. What went down? Because when I end up at a hospital, it doesn’t usually leave me jumping at shadows and double-checking the exits.”  
  
Dean gave him the highlights, adding detail where necessary and trying not to think too much about the words. Telling the story again—relaying to Jim the ultimatums that he had received, the reminder of what the goddamn papers said—made it impossible to ignore how close he’d come to losing control of everything. Losing  _Sam_. Those fuckers at the goddamn hospital had broken every promise he’d made to Sam, starting from the first day he’d gotten him out. He’d fucking promised that he would take care of Sam, keep him safe, never let anyone treat him like that again—and now they both knew how worthless Dean’s word was.  
  
“They took his clothes, Jim.” Dean forced himself to say it. “That’s all he said to me, when he was fucking strapped to a hospital bed, wearing one of those fucking slips that don’t cover anything. ‘They took my clothes’. Fuck. And I don’t think he was even awake when they did it.”  
  
Jim drew in a sharp breath. When Dean glanced over, Jim’s grip was tight on the steering wheel, lips pressed together. Two mile markers later, he said simply, “I’m glad you came here.”  
  
After another minute, Jim continued. “It’s important for him to have a safe space now, re-establish a sense of privacy, but he can’t shut himself away completely, either. Within a week, it would be good to find some reason to go into town. Hit a diner, or visit the library. The cliché is that you’ve got to get back on the horse after a fall, but the reality is that the longer he—and you—allow the fear of strangers and discovery to dictate your actions, the harder it will be to break the destructive patterns of paranoia and isolation.” Jim glanced over at him. “And I say that as a hunter. You can’t do the job if you’re more afraid of the civilians than you are of the monsters.”  
  
Dean forced a laugh, but there wasn't much amusement in it. “I thought you were a pastor.”  
  
“And as a pastor, I say that community helps build an understanding of ourselves and a connection to God. Challenging as it can be, that’s sometimes the only thing that makes life worth living.” Jim’s mouth quirked. “I can also put on my psychology degree and two-time Blue Earth senior baseball league MVP hats, if you’d like.”  
  
This time Dean’s laugh didn’t feel fake. He wouldn’t admit it in so many words, but damn, it was nice to be with someone who had a plan, or at least advice. “What’s the baseball advice?”  
  
“Post-injury, your options are to do the doctor-recommended physical therapy, or say goodbye to the full use of the joint.” Jim switched on his turn signal for the Fareway entrance. “So, to quote my doctor, ‘Do the effing therapy!’ Which reminds me, you tore out of that hospital pretty quick. I imagine Sam will need some check-ups to make sure those bones are healing properly.”  
  
Dean bit back a groan, rubbing at his forehead. “Yeah, but—shit. How long do you think we can put that off?”  
  
“Darn it, man, I’m a pastor, not a doctor.” Jim turned into a parking spot and killed the engine. “That said, I’ll look into it. Now, what are you going to be doing over the next six to eight weeks, while Sam’s on the mend?”  
  
“Oh—” Dean shrugged, hunching his shoulders against the biting wind as he got out of the truck. “Just, uh. My usual thing, I guess.”  
  
Jim gave him a dry look as he climbed out, locked the truck, and headed into the store. “You’re going to be leaving Sam alone while you hunt? In  _my_ town?” Dean shrugged defensively, and Jim sighed. “Or maybe you’re going to find a liquor store.”  
  
Dean’s shoulders tensed for a reason unrelated to the cold. He pressed his lips together and followed, fully expecting Jim to continue his steady stream of chatter as he got a cart, smiled at the girl staffing the customer care desk, and began moving through the produce aisle. But Jim kept mum. Dean broke when they reached the dry goods. “You got a suggestion?”  
  
“Well,” Jim said, comparing the backs of two pasta packages, “I know there’s some openings on a couple of the road-clearing crews. The pay’s not great, but making sure a bunch of folks don’t die or get stuck after a bad storm isn’t such a bad way of saving people. And it’ll let you reimburse the Larsons for their heating bill.”  
  
“Uh.” Dean hesitated. “Part-time?”  
  
Jim smiled. “Yes. Plenty of time for making sure that Sam has the support he needs.”  
  
~*~  
  
Dean spent the first day touching up a pair of backup IDs, so they could prove at the drop of a hat that they were “Sam and Dan Hardy,” a couple of brothers from South Dakota. Sam barely spoke or moved that entire day, struggling to find a position that would put the least amount of stress on his healing bones and bruises, dozing on the couch when he could. After finishing the ID job, Dean joined him at the other end, flipping through daytime soaps.  
  
That would have been fine for the first day of recovery in a new place. Fuck, it would have been fine for the first few days. But by the fourth day, Sam’s loudest unprompted utterances were only his half-smothered sobs when the pain from rolling onto his shoulder shook him out of a light, nightmare-laden sleep, and Dean wasn’t sure that they were going to survive in that tiny, respectable house long enough for Sam’s shoulder to heal. He’d been out shoveling twice, even though it hadn’t snowed since they got there, done all the light maintenance needed (at least what he could trust himself to handle with just the toolbox from the Impala), and even gotten the ancient vacuum cleaner out to give the rugs in the living room (where he may have tracked in a couple clods of the mud from beneath the snow) a quick once-over.  
  
He was ready to try anything. He just wasn’t sure what this new (fuck, not as new as he would like) silent Sam would be up for.  
  
He settled next to Sam, who had hardly budged from that same place on the couch the last few days. “So, Pastor Jim mentioned that the library in Fairmont is pretty rad, and they’ve got this really good mom and pop that he recommended. Wanna check it out?”  
  
Sam focused on him more quickly than he had responded to anything else that weekend, and Dean had to steel himself against the almost blank dread on Sam’s face.  
  
Dean was nearly ready to backtrack and say they never had to fucking leave the premises, when Sam gestured tentatively at the sling holding his arm to his chest. “Do I have to wear this?”  
  
Dean hesitated. “I don’t know. It’s pretty important to keep the bone together, but for a couple of hours? I guess not, if you don’t want. Is it bothering you?” If the bone had slid out of alignment, they’d need a doctor to fix it, and Dean didn’t know where the fuck he’d be able to find someone at the last minute who wouldn’t make that dread worse.  
  
Sam shook his head and dropped his hollow, haunted eyes from Dean’s. “I don’t like...people to see.”  
  
Dean considered this. When he’d been fifteen, he’d taken a bad fall from a tree after the thing he’d been on the lookout for had been better at jumping than he and Dad had expected. John had shot the weredeer in the head before it could gut him, but Dean had ended up in the ER to get the bone set. He’d hated that brace. Sure, the contraption had earned him some  _aww poor boy_  chick points, but the extra attention from the ladies hadn’t made up for the feeling that every time he walked into a school or a bar, the assholes would know where he was vulnerable, would go for that side because they knew (or thought) that he’d be favoring the injury.  
  
He’d ditched the brace a week earlier than he’d been supposed to, sick of the itch between his shoulder blades.  
  
“Be careful with it,” Dean told Sam, “but I’m not going to tattle on you.” He tried on a grin, but he barely got a twitch of Sam’s mouth in response.  
  
Better than the last couple of days, anyway.  
  
~  
  
The drive into town was quiet, except for Dean humming along with the Metallica tape, played at a much lower volume than usual. Sam leaned his head against the cold window and tried to pretend that the slow snowfall and silent buildings meant something like peace. He thought about how nice it would be to just keep driving for hours and hours, stopping only for brief breaks at abandoned rest stops, with the stars spread above them like a blanket, and no guard to ever tell him to drop his goddamn eyes.  
  
He knew Dean was worried about him, and Sam wished he could reassure him, but he had felt little but bone-deep exhaustion since Dean had pulled him from his hospital bed, freeing him for the second time. The feeling reminded him of old Thursday mornings, when he sometimes couldn’t pull himself up from his cot until Kayla gave him a kick in the ribs. Or until Crusher would—  
  
Sam flinched and then winced again when the motion jarred his unsupported arm. He forced his head up, trying to focus on the passing streets and the handful of other cars. Every time he found himself slipping into memories, he fought to pull himself out, keep himself focused on the here-and-now, or he might find himself trapped in that horror that he knew he had only barely left behind. It was worse now, when every time he closed his eyes or drifted into fitful sleep, he felt the thick straps tightening around his wrists, the unforgiving hospital lights blazing onto his eyelids.  
  
Dean had done so much for him, shown him so much of the world. But the hospital had reminded Sam that it wasn’t really his world. The ASC would always be out there, waiting for freaks they didn’t even know about yet to fail. And they already knew all about Sam, down to the sounds he made when he couldn’t take any more punishment.  
  
When they pulled up in front of a squat brick building marked MARTIN COUNTY LIBRARY, Sam couldn’t stop his hands from curling into fists and his heart rate picked up. He hadn’t even gotten a look at the hospital’s exterior, but something about the white, multi-arched library entryway and the blank glass wall behind it reminded him of a place meant to keep people ( _not people, though_ ) inside.  
  
But when they stepped through the doors (Sam limping as little as he could, but very aware of the ache in his shoulder and how easy it would be to take him down), he saw only books, like in any other library. Dean tilted his head toward the front desk, began moving toward it while he waved Sam toward the shelves. Gratefully, Sam slipped away from the curious eyes of the young, stocky male librarian.  
  
Sam stepped into an unoccupied aisle where he could see Dean and the front doors with plenty of warning before anyone approached him. His fingertips brushed over the books’ spines. He wasn’t really interested in finding a new book (between the exhaustion and the meds Dean had been giving him for the pain, it was hard to concentrate on anything) but something set prominently on a display shelf caught his eye.  
  
A minute later, he joined Dean at the front desk, his good arm cradling the worn tome to his side, ignoring the increased ache in his shoulder from the weight.  
  
Dean glanced at him and raised his eyebrows. “Figures you’d find the biggest book in the place.”  
  
“It’s a Shakespeare anthology.” Sam showed him the cover. “He’s mentioned a lot in my b-books and things.”  
  
“Yeah, I’ve heard of him. Wrote some stuff, right?” Dean nodded at the librarian. “Mandy here is getting our new library cards squared away so we can haul that home.”  
  
Mandy smiled at both of them, which Sam glimpsed before he dropped his gaze. “Are you Sam? Pastor Jim called us on Wednesday, said you might be coming in.”  
  
“Yeah?” Dean sounded surprised, and Sam stood very still, even as his grip tightened on the book.  _Stupid, stupid, stupid_. Pastor Jim didn’t mean any harm, Sam was fairly sure, but he still shouldn’t be  _talking_ about him. The fewer people who noticed or knew about him, the better.  
  
“He mentioned what a good help you could be,” Mandy said. “He knows we’re short-staffed right now, with Diana on maternity leave and Gary only doing half-days because of his back. Not a great time for it either, with the weather being so crappy. You’d be surprised how many folks go to the library in winter, when there’s not much else to do.” Mandy paused, then said hopefully, “We’d be grateful for a volunteer to help reshelve books, make sure they’ve been put back in the right place, that sort of thing.”  
  
Sam had the horrible certainty that she was talking to him. He shot a quick glance at Dean, both to confirm his suspicion and to beg for backup if the situation should go south. Dean was watching him with a furrowed brow, but when he saw Sam’s look, he turned back to Mandy.  
  
“Hey, why don’t you give us a couple days to think it over? We’re still getting a feel for this town and all it has to offer.”  
  
Mandy laughed. “Well, there’s not  _that_ much going on in Fairmont. Take this volunteer application form, and definitely think about it.”  
  
Two days later, the still-blank application was pinned to the refrigerator where Dean had put it. Dean took it down and brought it over to the table with his second cup of morning coffee. Sam tensed and glanced up briefly when Dean put it down next to him.  
  
“You thought any more about helping out at that library?”  
  
Sam swallowed before shrugging. “I—I d-don’t think…” He trailed off, caught between his desire to tell Dean whatever he wanted to hear and the knowledge that that wasn’t how his life was anymore, no matter how the anxiety clawed at him. “I don’t kn-know how I’d be able to h-help them.” He twitched the fingers of his right hand toward his sling, hoping Dean would think he was only talking about the bad shoulder, and not everything else.  
  
Dean slouched back in his chair, one arm dangling over the back, fingers tapping along the edges of the chair. “I’m sure they’d show you around. Not like they want poetry and motorcycle maintenance together, or Shakespeare in with the gore-fest horror novels. They’d watch out for you.” Something must have shown on Sam’s face, because Dean abandoned his casual posture, sitting up to give Sam his full attention. “This is only if you want to. I’m not going to force you out the door, Sam.”  
  
Thank God. Sam knew he should know that by now, that Dean wasn’t going to force him to go where he didn’t feel comfortable, that there would be no  _consequences_ or  _punishments_ for saying he couldn’t do something, but it still helped to hear it out loud. “I don’t—” He couldn’t meet Dean’s eye. “I d-don’t think I’d d-do a good job right n-now. Of being—n-normal. Like them. W-we’re using new IDs, p-people we haven’t been before, and I don’t want to draw a-attention.”  
  
Dean exhaled, then leaned over to rest his hand on Sam’s knee. “I know, Sammy. But we’re gonna be here for a while. Another month or so. You’re gonna get sick of just these walls.”  
  
Sam shook his head. He was fine here. This was safe, secured, and no one could sneak up on them.  
  
“Look, even if you’re doing great here—which is totally okay, you’re healing, and I think my scratches are all gone already—I’m gonna go crazy if I don’t get out once in a while. I might—well, Jim mentioned a road crew that’d let me jump on board when the snow hits. I’d help, clearing roads and making sure the power lines aren’t going to electrocute someone, that sort of thing. It wouldn’t be full time, ‘course, but it pays decent and, well, it would be good for us both to get out, y’know?”  
  
Dean wanted him to agree. The hopeful smile, the way he kept trying to catch Sam’s eye, told him so. But Sam didn’t have to. It was good, very good, that he didn’t have to lie about that to Dean’s face. Yet because of that same kindness, he couldn’t just say no. He shut his eyes and forced out, “I’ll try.” He couldn’t promise anything more.  
  
Dean squeezed his knee. “That’s great, Sammy. We’ll take it one day at a time, like the shrinks say. That’s all I want, that’s all we need right now. Hey, speaking of heading out, remember when Pastor Jim invited us over for dinner Monday? Want to? It would beat cooking for ourselves.”  
  
Sam breathed out and nodded. Yes, he could do that, at least.  
  
~  
  
The drive to Jim’s that evening was quiet and smooth, Dean driving at an absurdly slow speed to minimize the impact of the inevitable country-road bumps and potholes. Sam was half-asleep against the shotgun door by the time they pulled into Jim’s yard. He blinked at the brightly lit porch, the shape of the house attached, and the shadowy outline of the church beyond it.  
  
Jim must have been waiting for them, because he swung open the door as soon as they got out of the Impala. “You boys going to hurry up, or are you planning to become popsicles?” They hurried, Sam daring a small smile as they knocked snow off their boots on the entryway rug.  
  
Dinner was a basic meatloaf, baked potatoes with all the toppings, and green beans. Dean and Pastor Jim carried the conversation, with Sam adding nothing unless asked directly. He ate quietly with one hand, the other wrapped in the sling, his shoulders tensing slightly anytime Pastor Jim looked at him too long. He knew this was a safe place, that there wasn’t a threat here, but it was hard to remember that in each individual moment.  
  
For dessert, Jim brought out a pie with a tub of vanilla ice cream, and Sam smiled at it even before he heard Dean’s enthusiastic, “Aw,  _yeah_ , baby!”  
  
“It’s not strawberry, I’m afraid, but it’s fresh baked, and this is one of Mary Rainie’s crusts,” Pastor Jim said as he scooped out huge pieces. “She makes them with real lard and sugar.”  
  
Dean mumbled something appreciative around his mouthful of pie, and Sam tasted it carefully. It really was delicious.  
  
As they scooped the last bites out of their bowls, Sam forced out a quiet, “Thank you—it was v-very good.”  
  
Pastor Jim leaned back, folding his hands over his stomach. “Glad to have you boys join me for it. I’m here and cooking most Mondays. I’d be pleased anytime you want to stop in. Sometimes time passes a little faster when you’ve got something to mark it with.”  
  
“That’d be great.” Dean sounded surprised, but gruffly pleased. “And that’s one less night I get to try poisoning us with my cooking, right, Sam?”  
  
Sam glanced up and tried to give him a smile. It felt thin and worn as a shirt that hadn’t been removed before a whipping, but he managed it.  
  
“Sam, you’re looking better, but still a little pale,” Pastor Jim said. “How are your ribs feeling? I hate busted ribs. Hurts to eat, hurts to breathe, hurts to talk.”  
  
“I can see how that could be a problem,” Dean said, not really hiding a snicker.  
  
Pastor Jim waved a finger at him. “Hush. Just for that, you volunteered for the dishes.”  
  
“They’re okay,” Sam said. He kept it quiet, kept his eyes down. Pastor Jim had never treated him like a freak, but he saw everything, even under all that talking, and Sam didn’t think that he could bear to be  _seen_ right now, not by a hunter.  
  
“And that collarbone? I know six weeks is standard for the ribs, but collarbone fractures can vary quite a lot, depending on location and severity. What did the doctor say?”  
  
Sam glanced at Dean, who shrugged one shoulder defensively. “About eight weeks.”  
  
Pastor Jim watched Dean, as though waiting for more, but as the silence stretched, he leaned forward, steepling his fingers before him. “I’ve heard that healing collarbones can be a mess, kind of like ribs but with more possibility for disaster. It’s smart to have a doctor check them out regularly.”  
  
 _No_. Sam froze, even his breath stopping for a moment. He could see where this conversation could lead, and he did not like it. Slowly, he raised his eyes first to Pastor Jim, who was quiet, intent, and unreadable. Then he looked to Dean.  
  
“I don’t need a doctor.” Sam tried to sound firm, but his voice sounded small and faintly panicked, even to his own ears.  
  
Dean sighed, folding his arms on the table and looking at no one. “Actually, Sammy...the doc at the hospital said pretty much the same thing. Thought it would be good to have check-ups, just to make sure it doesn’t heal crooked or something.”  
  
“It doesn’t need to be at a hospital,” Jim said softly.  
  
Sam stared at the both of them, heart pounding in his ears. _Did they plan this together?_  Did Dean and Jim think that it would be the only way to make him go quietly—that the only way to get the message through his thick monster skull was to corner him, to hit him from both sides? Sam felt his hands clenching, his breath coming unevenly. In camp, when freaks had tried this, they had usually been unpleasantly surprised, or else Sam had been left broken. There was no third option from a sneak attack.  
  
“I’ve been making some calls,” the pastor continued. “There are doctors in the area who wouldn’t mind making a house call.”  
  
Sam jolted back in his chair, pushing it a few inches away from the table. “Y-you’ve been—t-telling them about me?”  
  
“Sam, hey.” Dean reached for his hand, but Sam jerked back. It was all he could do not to throw himself off the chair to get away.  
  
“Dean.” Speaking was almost impossible when he had to fight just to breathe. If he looked Dean in the face—he couldn’t do that and get the words out, and hold onto a modicum of calm. He focused instead on the table space between them. “Dean, you t-t-told me—you s-said—if I’m not c-com-comfortable, if I’m not o-okay—I’m  _not_ , Dean, I  _can’t_. Please don’t—”  
  
“Hey, hey, Sam.” Dean had leaned close, though he didn’t try to touch him this time. He spoke quietly, as though it were just the two of them. “No one’s going to make you do anything you’re not ready for, I promise. But this isn’t going to be that cold-blooded fuckhouse hospital. Doctor visits are different, there’s no tying down, and if someone gives you so much as the stink eye, I’m taking them down, ‘cause I’m not leaving you for a second, you understand?”  
  
“Dean…” Sam could only shake his head, squeezing the bridge of his nose. How could Dean think that a trained real could look at Sam and not  _know_ , clearly and irrevocably, that a freak sat before him? Even without factoring in the ASC finding out, and the panic, how could Dean ever think that would be okay?  
  
“Sam,” Pastor Jim broke in, “what do you think is going to happen with a doctor?”  
  
But Sam couldn’t speak to him. The pastor had been  _talking_ to people about him, and that couldn’t help but make it easier for the ASC to find him. He just wasn’t sure if Pastor Jim didn’t know, or didn’t care, about the consequences of that. He turned to Dean again. “They’re going to kn-know.”  
  
“Sam, they only knew at the hospital because they peeled off the tape. If they hadn’t, they would have treated you like anybody else, I swear.”  
  
Sam shook his head. “They’ll know, because he  _t-told_ them.” He couldn’t look at Pastor Jim.  
  
“I didn’t tell them where you came from, Sam,” Pastor Jim said, just as calm as before, though with an added touch of concern. “I just said that you were needing a check-up after a recent accident, and that you weren’t too keen on dealing with a pack of strangers at a doctor’s office. I’m...sorry I didn’t talk to you about it first.”  
  
Sam dropped his forehead into his hand, still fighting for control. “They’re going to know.”  
  
“They won’t,” Pastor Jim said with calm certainty. “Indeed, I give you my word that no one I introduce to you will put any kind of restraints on you or touch you without your permission. But the thing is, Sam, this is really the best time to meet this issue head on. Aside from the real risk of permanent handicap if your collarbone doesn’t heal correctly—if you continue hunting, you will end up in a hospital again. And that’s assuming you don’t end up needing medical attention for something as dull and predictable as the flu. Dean may not always be able or qualified to help you, and if you can learn to handle small visits now, it will be easier for you when you really have no other choice.”  
  
Dean was nodding. Sam had to look away, bringing his hand up before his eyes, willing himself not to cry here in front of them. He had to trust Dean—he had to trust both of them, and believe that this wasn’t going to end in restraints, a gag, a black van taking him away for more testing. “When?” The word was rough in his throat.  
  
“As soon as you’re ready,” Pastor Jim said. “I’d recommend within the next week and a half, just to make sure that bone is okay.”  
  
But Sam shook his head. “Soon. Tomorrow. If it has to happen...then as soon as it can."  
  
“Okay, Sammy.” Dean’s voice was quiet, his hand rubbing slowly between Sam’s shoulders.  
  
“I’ll call first thing in the morning,” Pastor Jim said. “My contact may not have an availability tomorrow, but I’ll see what we can do. Why don’t you meet here for the appointment? That way, you don’t need to worry about anyone knowing where your current home base is.”  
  
Sam nodded without looking up. It wouldn’t matter that much if the doctor made a report to the ASC, but he could tell that Pastor Jim was trying to make him feel better.  
  
The drive back to Jim and Linda’s house was silent. Sam kept his eyes on his hands and tried to keep his stomach settled. It wasn’t easy, not when every time he could almost forget the conversation they’d had, the looming prospect of being  _examined_ , he remembered afresh.  
  
Ten minutes into the drive, Dean asked, in an attempted offhand tone, “You mad at me?”  
  
Sam shook his head. “I don’t get m-mad at you.”  
  
“Seriously?” Dean half grinned, but there was worry behind the expression. “Think I don’t remember that time that diner gave you the wrong sandwich and I tried sending it back? Man, you were  _this close_  to decking me.”  
  
To Sam’s own surprise, his lips turned up in a smile. “I wasn’t about to deck you.”  
  
“Please. You were about to flip tables. I was totally going to duck. That diner is lucky to still be standing.”  
  
Sam ducked his head, still smiling. “I wasn’t  _that_ angry.”  
  
“But you were pissed at me.” Dean sounded oddly satisfied.  
  
Sam hesitated. “Yeah. Yes.” He hesitated, then went ahead with the question. “D-did you...plan that in ad-advance with him, with Pastor Jim?”  
  
Dean glanced swiftly at him. “What, the doctor thing? Hell no. I mean, he mentioned that you might need a check-up, and that he’d look into it, but I didn’t know he’d ambush us with it tonight.”  
  
Sam said nothing. That response didn’t ease the cold dread in him about the whole situation, but at least one knot had loosened. He relaxed a little against the shotgun window.  
  
“Hey.” Dean let go of the steering wheel with his right hand and offered it on the seat, low and without demand. Sam took it, that firm familiar grasp reassuring in spite of everything. “I’ll be there, okay? No one’s keeping me out of the room this time. And if we have to, we’ll clear out of Blue Earth afterward, fuck, out of the state. Even if you just want to.”  
  
Sam took a deep breath and nodded. It wasn’t reassuring, exactly. Nothing could be fully reassuring with the prospect of more doctors, tests, examinations before him. He had to trust Dean that this was yet another real test he could pass.  
  
Jim called the next morning, as they were finishing breakfast. Dean answered, then said, “Uh, yeah,” and held out the phone to Sam. “It’s Jim.”  
  
Sam hesitated, then brought the phone to his ear. “Hello?”  
  
“Morning, Sam. How are you doing today?”  
  
“Okay.” It was probably too much to hope that Jim had reconsidered and was calling off the doctor idea.  
  
“I’ve been making some calls. Andy Gardner used to work with kids in Blue Earth, both at his practice and volunteering, and though he’s retired now, he still knows his stuff and would be fine for a simple check-up. I actually went to see him when I was a sprout, if you can imagine that. We’ve been friends for decades, get together once a month to shoot the breeze and drink sarsaparilla, that sort of thing. Would you be okay meeting with him?”  
  
Sam swallowed, his awareness of the kitchen—the wooden chair underneath him, Dean’s worried glances—growing both more distant and sharper. “Yes,” he managed at last.  
  
“He’s in town today, otherwise he will swing back around probably Friday. Do you and Dean want to come over sometime today, or figure out a better time later in the week?”  
  
Sam looked up, and it grounded him to meet Dean’s eyes, his expression tight with worry but focused unwaveringly on him. Sam adjusted the phone away from his mouth. “Today. There’s a doctor. If we can go t-to Blue Earth.”  
  
Dean gave a quick nod. “Yeah, Sam, ‘course.”  
  
Sam brought the phone back to his cheek. “When today?”  
  
“Well, how about right after lunch? One p.m., say. I’ll invite him over for a bite—in fact, you’re both welcome too, we could all sit down—”  
  
“No thank you,” Sam said, too quickly. He wouldn’t tell Dean, but a large part of him still recoiled at the thought of what a hunter or real would do when he realized he’d eaten at a table with a freak. “Wh-wh-wh—” He swallowed, clenching his teeth, and tried again more slowly. “What. Will. You. Tell. Him. About. Me?”  
  
“That you’ve been through hell and don’t like to be touched by strangers,” Jim answered. “Nothing more specific than that. Andy will understand, Sam. Shame is that he’s seen hundreds of kids like that, and he’s...he’ll understand.”  
  
“Okay.” It wasn’t okay, nothing about this would be okay, but it was going to happen. Sam couldn’t doubt that, not with his desire to please Dean, and his bone-deep understanding that when hunters or other authorities made a decision, he wasn’t going to be able to change it, no matter how he begged or fought. He was working on that understanding, trying to break it because Dean wanted him to, but he knew here and now that it would be impossible to fight.  
  
“All right, Sam. I’ll see you soon.”  
  
Sam held the phone out to Dean, but Dean caught his hand instead. “Hey. What’s the plan?”  
  
“One p.m. today.” Sam dropped his head to rest on his arm on top of the table.  
  
Dean scooted closer, his other hand settling between Sam’s shoulder blades, rubbing circles over the back of his neck. That hadn’t grown any less wonderful since the first time he’d done it. Sam never wanted to move from this spot. He especially did not want to have a stranger, a doctor, looking at him in a few hours and spotting everything freakish in him, pointing it out so that Dean might also look at him in disgust and never touch him again. He swallowed hard. “You’ll stay with me?”  
  
“Every minute, Sam. Not gonna let you out of sight for a second. And if we gotta hit the road afterward, that’s what we’ll do. But it’s gonna go fine, really.” After a moment, he added reflectively, “Waiting’s going to be shit, though.”  
  
Sam huffed out something that wasn’t quite a laugh. Yes, he remembered that feeling from long Wednesday afternoons.  
  
~*~  
  
In the Impala, Sam closed his eyes to the passing sights, trying to pretend they were on an open highway, with nothing awaiting them but the next rest stop or drive-thru or motel. He tried to repress what Dean had told him of regular doctor visits. Each description of cuffs, touching, or being told to open his mouth made him feel that same buzzing terror under his skin. He knew Dean meant to reassure him, but it didn’t help that neither of them knew which of these tests would be the one that could give him away.  
  
Dean didn’t think that would happen. He didn’t believe Sam was a freak, but Sam knew all the ways he could be wrong—there were so many ways a freak could manifest without leaving any evidence behind. He just had to hold on tight to the knowledge that Dean would not willingly take him into a situation that would end with Sam strapped into a black van.  
  
He  _tried_.  
  
He was trying, always fucking trying, but it was hard. Hard not to think about being dragged to Special Research. Hard not to be hyper-aware of the bands around his right arm—yes, supporting those bones, but marking him immediately as crippled, vulnerable. His left wrist was rubbing against the leather seat, maybe to prove to himself that he could still move it, that he could get away if he had to, maybe because that was the only part of him that felt free with this band tightening around his chest, his breath coming thin and short and— No, no, he knew this, it had happened outside of Freak Camp and before the hospital, the sensation of being tied too tight to breathe, no air in his lungs and his brain screaming nonstop—  
  
“Sam. Sam!”  
  
Sam couldn’t answer, couldn’t even draw breath to try, but he felt the car swerve and stop, Dean leaning over him to open the shotgun door. In one moment of mindless panic, Sam grabbed at Dean’s sleeve, terrified that Dean had finally reached the point where Sam wasn’t worth the struggle anymore, that Dean was just going to shove him out of the Impala to die or be taken—but no, fuck, of course not, Dean was just telling him to breathe, deep breaths, unzip that jacket if he had to. He was trying not to crowd Sam too much, but he returned the grip on Sam’s hand.  
  
It took minutes before the invisible bands eased, before Sam could draw in deeper, ragged breaths. As the panic faded, frustration and shame took its place, and he fisted his free hand, slamming it into the seat. “I hate this. I’m fucking—I hate being so weak—”  
  
“Sammy, you’re not.” Dean sounded so exhausted that Sam opened his eyes, sure it couldn’t be like that, that Dean couldn’t have reached that point so quickly. Sam shouldn’t have, though, because seeing—as though for the first time—the dark circles beneath Dean’s eyes, the hollow burnout of his forced smile, Sam would have given anything to know he wasn’t destroying the best man he’d ever known.  
  
Sam drew himself up. He couldn’t force a smile, he couldn’t be okay, but maybe if he faked it hard enough, some of the weariness in Dean’s face would go away. “I’m o-okay. Let’s go.”  
  
Dean hesitated. “Sammy—”  
  
“Let’s  _go_ , Dean.” Sam was afraid his voice would break if he said anything more—that anything else he said would fall apart into pleas for them to hit the nearest highway, to get as far away as they could, to put this off—but Pastor Jim had been right. Sooner or later, they’d have to face something like this. Better now, when Sam was sixty-two percent sure that he wasn’t going to end up dead or worse, than later, when they didn’t have a choice.  
  
Slowly, as though he were the unwilling one, Dean slid back behind the wheel.

by quickreaver

~

Dr. Andy Gardner had been practicing medicine since he was younger than the boy in front of him. Granted, back then it had mostly been birds and dogs and smaller kids who didn’t have big brothers willing to drive off bullies, but that meant that he’d had over six decades with both the desire to heal and experience with delicate, frightened patients. And on days like this, looking at kids like Sam, he was both grateful for that, and tired.

  
He’d watched as the two boys waited in their black car outside Jimmy’s house. Pardon, Pastor Jim. Andy could still remember every chapter in the textbook he’d crammed for his medical certification, but some days it was harder than others to remember that the skinny kid he’d patched up more than once (mainly because Jimmy had had neither a big brother, nor much fear of bullies himself) was a grown man.  
  
“Think they’re going to come in?” Andy asked eventually, when the car just sat there, clicking down. He could wait all day, but he didn’t think he could stand there all day, waiting for a couple of squirts with a fear of strangers. He’d gotten a new hip about a decade gone, but that didn’t mean he didn’t hurt.  
  
Jimmy sighed. “I hope so.” A minute later, he put on his best smile (a fine one, had once left all the girls sighing after him) and went out to wave them in.  
  
Andy had learned to read a lot about people from their body language. The big kid, Dean, probably carried a couple of weapons. He looked dangerous, like cops or bikers, or some of the young punks Andy passed in big city parks, the ones who were either more careful with him than most respectable folk or complete idiots. Dean struck him as safely in the middle, depending on where his head was.  
  
The other one—Sam—was about the same height, though a hell of a lot skinnier. But it was the way he held himself, the way he wouldn’t meet Andy’s eyes or even look directly at Jimmy or Dean, that told Andy a lot. After this many years, it shouldn’t hurt to meet kids who were messed up—maybe by their folks, maybe by life—so bad that they couldn’t meet something new without waiting for it to hurt them, but it always did.  
  
Andy eased into a rolling armchair after introductions, doing his best impression of a harmless old geezer, but Sam looked like he could have been blown over by a light breeze. They took seats side-by-side on the sofa, barely a breath between them.  
  
Andy gave his typical new-patient-about-to-bolt spiel.  _Gonna give you a heads-up before every touch, these are the parts of the check-up, let me know if anything hurts or you just plain don’t like it_ , that sort of thing. He wasn’t sure if he was grateful or just sad when the kid barely gave any sign of acknowledgment.  
  
Jimmy let them use his bathroom scale (bringing it to the living room, before making himself scarce again) and a yardstick. No records were being filed, no names beyond Sam and Dean (though he could make an educated guess). Sam was five foot eleven inches and weighed one hundred and five pounds—not a healthy weight for a boy his age, no, but not one that Andy could summon much surprise for, everything else taken into account.  
  
“Do you like to eat, Sam?” There was always the possibility that the undernourishment stemmed from anorexia rather than abuse—though one could never discount the two options working together in a horrible synergy.  
  
Sam flinched, the way he had every time Andy had directed a question to him, then half-turned toward Dean. “I-I’m not s-sure…” he trailed off, his voice uncertain.  
  
“Not a trick question, just wondering if you’re usually hungry for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” Andy said lightly.  
  
Sam clasped his hands tightly before him, eyes directed down again. “Y-yes. Sir. Dean gets—we eat. Three meals a day.”  
  
“What’s your favorite food?”  
  
For some reason, Sam hunched down further, holding his hands together so tight his knuckles were white. “I d-don’t have a f-favorite…” He drew a breath. “D-diner food. I like diners.”  
  
Andy decided to let the point go. “Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to get some pounds on you that way. It’s important, you’re a growing boy.”  
  
When Andy asked for Sam’s wrist to take his pulse, it took Sam several seconds before he twitched his hand over. Applying the blood pressure cuff and holding a stethoscope to his chest felt even more invasive. “Tense” didn’t begin to describe the boy’s body language—Andy suspected, even before he got the reading on the blood pressure dial or listened to his heart, that the boy wasn’t taking nearly as many breaths as a person ought to.  
  
The kid was terrified. Probably the only reason he didn’t jerk away from Andy’s touch, or run screaming out of the house, was that he’d already “gone away” in his mind. Not the first exam Andy had done that went like that, but he never liked it.  
  
Andy sighed and rolled himself back in his chair. His legs were good enough for that, at least. “Sam, we’re going to call a timeout because your heart’s racing like a Kentucky two-year-old.” Sam’s eyes opened, wider than they had been before, but still focused on nothing in particular before him. Andy put his palms together (darn arthritis made them ache this time of day, so it felt good to rub at them a bit). “Are you worried about this exam, Sam, or about doctors?”  
  
No response, except for one minute flinch of the head that could have been a yes.  
  
“Lots of folks aren’t comfortable around doctors,” Andy said. And darn if that wasn’t an understatement. “But do you feel like this often, in other everyday situations?”  
  
He didn’t miss Sam’s half-glance at Dean, though whether that was for support or for permission to answer (and wasn’t he going to have a conversation with Jimmy about that, if that were the case), Andy couldn’t tell. Then the kid choked out, “S-some days. Sir.”  
  
Andy nodded, every inch the doctor he was. “Lots of people feel anxious at times, and for a wide variety of reasons. Have you noticed certain times you feel more anxious than others? Public spaces, or in crowds? Or are there more specific situations or types of people that make it harder for you?” He smiled gently. “It’s okay if you’re not comfortable telling me, I’m just asking because I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be sitting here today if this were your normal blood pressure and heart rate. Anxiety can get in the way of life, but I want you to know that other people feel this way too, and there are ways that may allow you to lessen or better cope with it. If you want to talk about some of those, I’d be happy to, either privately or with your friend here. Either way, whatever you tell me is in strictest confidence. Nothing I learn today is being recorded anywhere but in my noggin, and there it’s going to stay. But I want you to know that there are alternatives to feeling this way.”  
  
Sam took a shuddering breath, his fingers digging into the fabric of the sofa, though Andy could almost convince himself that he was a shade more relaxed, something more thoughtful than terrified in his eyes.  
  
The rest of the exam went quietly, even as Andy gently examined the fractured collarbone and tried to touch the kid as little as possible while making sure that his ribs were still where they should be. Everything seemed to be in the right place, except for those marks that made Andy’s lips purse, and that he made a mental note to bring up to Jimmy later, in private, when the kid wasn’t so shaken under his hands. Sam closed his eyes during the contact and didn’t say a word, but the hitches in his breath were a clear enough signal for Andy to back off.  
  
Finally, he rolled his chair back again. “Well, Sam, that’s it for today, unless you have any questions. Everything seems to be healing nicely. You were an excellent patient and seem to be taking care of that collarbone just fine.”  
  
Sam leaned forward as though preparing to bolt, but not quite believing he’d be allowed. “Th-thank you,” he said, still without looking him in the face.  
  
Dean had leaned forward with Sam. “That’s it?”  
  
“Well, I’d like to check in every couple of weeks. We shouldn’t need to go through the rest of it most times, but I do want to keep an eye on that bone.”  
  
“O-okay,” Sam said. The he turned to Dean.  
  
Andy didn’t hear what he said. The kid may not have even said anything, but Dean looked up, nervous and defiant, and said, “Yeah, we’ve got to go, if that’s cool? See ya later, Jim!” And without waiting for a response, he shepherded Sam out of the house and back into their very shiny car. A moment later, they peeled out of the driveway and down the road.  
  
Andy stayed in the living room, waiting until Jimmy came back into the room.  
  
“How’d it go?” Jimmy asked. “I know that Sam’s pretty skittish and Dean can be something of a bulldog when he puts his mind to it, but I figured they wouldn’t give any trouble to a—”  
  
“You going to tell me about the tape on his chest?” Andy asked. Some part of him was pleased that he could still stop Jimmy dead in his tracks and shut his mouth. It was a gift few possessed, not even the hordes of hell (and that was a fact Andy had known years before the White House Massacre). “And while you’re at it, you might have mentioned the scars.”  
  
Even what he’d seen in that gentle, non-invasive exam had been sickening. Not something he hadn’t seen before, to his great regret, but sickening just the same. He figured there was worse under his clothes. The kind of monsters that did such things to children (or anyone, for that matter) rarely practiced restraint.  
  
Jimmy drew himself up. He could be a regal man, when he had a mind to be. He could be scary, and stalwart, and a good man at any time. “All I can tell you about the scars is that Dean didn’t put them there.”  
  
“And I’ll take your word on that.” Andy hadn’t been able to get a full bead on Dean, but he hadn’t set off any alarms, at least. Jimmy would know the boys better.  
  
“Would you take my word for it if I told you the check was in the mail for the check-up?” Jimmy grinned.  
  
Andy snorted. “If you think I’m going that senile, maybe you should get someone else to stitch up your bullet wounds.”  
  
“No one else makes house calls.” Jimmy made it sound almost mournful, but Andy worried sometimes that after he was gone, there’d be no one to patch up Jimmy and his lost boys. Andy Gardner wasn’t the kind of doctor who would show up in the dead of night to patch bullet wounds, no questions asked, for a wad of cash. But he knew the importance of staying off the radar and on the down-low. He asked plenty of questions; he just wasn’t always too hung up if he didn’t get all the answers to them.  
  
But for this one, he wanted a little more. “That tape’s hiding something, Jimmy,” he said. “I’ll have your promise it’s nothing I can do or should worry about.”  
  
Jimmy spread his hands and smiled—not a happy expression, but a hard one. Andy had always respected him, and that smile was a large part of why. “Not my secret to tell.”  
  
Andy had a pretty good guess. He knew Jimmy’s night job after all, and that about half of his friends who needed to be patched up were in the same business. He could, he supposed, find it reassuring that sometimes they weren’t just killing the lost souls that they found.  
  
~  
  
Sam kept himself still, kept at bay the panic and fear still bubbling inside, until they reached the safety of the Impala. Once inside, he leaned against the shotgun window, hands between his knees, staring into the depths of the foot well. Sam was grateful when Dean wordlessly started the Impala and got them moving.  
  
He didn’t break the silence until they were pulling onto the highway toward Fairmont. “See, just like I told you—you’ve got nothing going on besides how that troll banged you up,” Dean said. “How do you want to celebrate? Hit up a bookstore, go on an ice cream run, start head-banging to some Beethoven tapes?”  
  
Sam managed a small smile. “I’m okay. He didn’t...didn’t see anything. But in two weeks, we have to do it again.”  
  
Dean groaned, raising and dropping his hands back onto the steering wheel. “Sam, you seriously think that old grandpa in suspenders is going to see something next time that he missed today? He said already that today was the big exam. Next time he’s just going to poke at that collarbone. You passed, dude. I swear, there’s nothing weirder about you than about me. You’ve got to believe me.”  
  
Sam drew a breath, straightening his shoulders. Dean really sounded desperate, half-exasperated, half-wheedling—a specific mix Sam remembered clearly from the early Boulder days. He’d been using it since the hospital, treating Sam so carefully, and that...hurt in some ways, that Dean still felt the need to coax and placate him. Sam had to change all that, he had to do better, because despite how real the danger had been, the awfulness of being  _tieddownnakedhelpless_  again in the hospital, how he had almost felt the ASC breathing down their necks—they had gotten away.  
  
Here, in Pastor Jim’s neighborhood, they were as safe as they were going to get, and Sam had to stop acting like such a cowardly little bitch-freak. Dean deserved and needed someone better, someone who could watch his back, who didn’t cringe every time a real looked at him. He had to trust Dean that the worst had passed and the next examinations— _appointments_ —would be okay. And until then….  
  
“You’re right.” He tried to make the words strong, confident; stronger than he felt, at least. “I passed.” One more deep breath so he wouldn’t stumble on the next words. “I’d like to t-try volunteering at the library.”  
  
~*~  
  
The library turned out to be so simple, Sam was almost taken aback. Mandy seemed genuinely glad to have him there, and while she asked a lot of general questions the first day ( _How are you liking Fairmont? What brought you over from South Dakota?_ ), she easily accepted the cover story that he and Dean had agreed on in advance: they were visiting their old friend Pastor Jim while recovering from a car accident.  
  
She was surprised when he had the Dewey decimal system memorized after the first day. That made him anxious at first, heart thudding as he wondered if he’d been  _abnormal_ again. But she seemed more pleased and impressed than suspicious, lamenting that he and Dean wouldn’t be staying in Fairmont long-term, so she wouldn’t be able to hire him on full-time when Gary retired.  
  
As soon as Sam demonstrated that he knew his way around the stacks, she left him alone with a cart of books to shelve. The work was methodical and peaceful in a way he hadn’t expected. He’d often worked in the small library inside FREACS, but under constant awareness of the cameras in the corners of the room, and with the knowledge that a guard might come in at any time, he had never truly relaxed there. Here, there was something wonderful about the wide range of books he handled, the tap of keys at the bank of free computers, the sound of children unafraid to be noisier than they should. When he finished everything they had for him (Mandy delighted and a little gleeful at the empty reshelving carts), he took his Shakespeare anthology to a secluded corner and read until Dean came to pick him up after his day with the road-clearing crew.  
  
Dean looked better now, with less stress lining his forehead and around his eyes. On the drive to the cabin and through most of dinner, he told Sam stories about the bozos he worked with and the weird shit they’d pull. Then that night, like most of their nights since the doctor visit, they watched a movie from the Larsons’ collection.  
  
They went first through some of the animated Disney films, and Sam liked them all, especially  _Lion King_  and  _Toy Story_. Dean felt a little weird watching kids’ films, but he had to admit that watching Sam’s face light up (and himself remembering just how damn catchy some of those songs were) put a big grin on his own face pretty much every night that they ended up in front of the TV.  
  
To his relief, though, Sam also turned out be a fucking  _huge_ Indiana Jones fan. He loved  _Raiders_ (which, duh, best in the trilogy), and Dean knew even before Sam bumped his shoulder and said how cool Indiana was, that Sam had good taste in awesome badasses.  
  
 _Temple of Doom_  went a little rougher. Dean had forgotten about the child slaves, and the whipping, and the extremely creepy force-feeding-blood thing. Sam’s grip was a vise on Dean’s arm through those scenes, but they got through it without anything worse, and Sam was smiling again at the end. Dean’s relief felt kinda absurd, but he knew that this wouldn’t have been possible just last year. It was a damn good thing to see that even the fucking hospital hadn’t taken them all the way back to square one.  
  
One night, he got out of the shower to find Sam sitting before the DVD shelf, flipping through a small stack he’d picked out.  
  
“ _Star Wars_.” Sam looked up at Dean. “That’s something everyone’s seen, right?”  
  
Dean hesitated, not so much to answer the question as to think of what in the series was likely to give Sam nightmares. Vader Force-strangling his underlings, Luke getting his hand chopped off—and, oh yeah, there was that scene with Leia in the golden bikini, chained to that slime-monster. Dean was a little ashamed of himself now for finding that super-hot in his early teens. Didn’t she even have a chain around her throat? Shit.  
  
But Sam was examining the case cover closely. “This looks like Indiana Jones! The actor who played him, I mean.”  
  
Dean huffed a laugh, moving closer. “Yeah, that’s Harrison Ford, a few years younger than he was in  _Raiders_. Still pretty smoking, even without the hat. But, uh—some stuff in there’s pretty hardcore, I dunno if you’re in the mood for it.”  
  
Sam glanced up at him, frowning a little, then looked back down at the DVD. “But this is something everyone knows, isn’t it? So I guess I’ll just have to deal.” His voice was casual, dismissive, like the issue was already settled. Since the doctor appointment and Sam’s announcement that he’d volunteer at the library, Dean had seen a resurgence of an earlier Sam—the one from last fall, who had pushed his own boundaries without regard for his own comfort. These days, it wasn’t quite as obvious that Sam’s goal was to make Dean happy, but Dean still felt torn between pride and guilt.  
  
Dean sighed. “Sam…”  
  
Sam stood up, giving Dean a lopsided smile. “I won’t watch if I don’t want to, okay? Like with some of  _Temple of Doom_ , I watched your shoulder instead.”  
  
“It’s a nice shoulder, if I do say so myself.” Dean still wasn’t sure about this, but he didn’t know either how to get out of it. So they watched it.  
  
Sam liked the robots a lot, as anyone would, and got really excited when Harrison Ford showed up. They paced themselves, and three nights later, they finished  _Return of the Jedi_ , which had the creepy Jabba the Hutt scene that Dean had been dreading. But he’d forgotten how Leia showed off what a badass she was, even in that skimpy bikini, by throttling the slimy son of a bitch. He hoped Sam had paid attention to that bit. His only reaction to that whole scene had been to go absolutely still against Dean’s side. Once Leia reunited with Luke and they escaped before blowing the whole place up, Sam exhaled and relaxed.  
  
After the cheesy images of Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin faded from the sky, Sam leaned back against Dean’s chest. “I still like C-3PO and R2D2 best,” he said at last. “Though Han Solo was pretty cool too,” he added, turning his head to grin at Dean. No, not grin,  _smirk_. “He really loved his Millennium Falcon.”  
  
“‘Course he did, it was his baby.” Dean shrugged, a little defensively. “I get the feeling, y’know?”  
  
“Yeah.” Sam slid a little further down, so he was almost lying with his head in Dean’s lap, looking up at him. “I guess that makes me Chewbacca,” he said thoughtfully—then, seeing Dean’s face, he added, “You’re always saying I have a lot of hair.”  
  
“Yeah, on your  _head_. You know who else has a lot of hair just on their head? Leia. She has luscious locks, is cute, and badass. Just like you.”  
  
“Oh.” Even in the dim light from the TV’s blue screen, Dean could see Sam’s wide smile and flushed cheeks.  
  
“Yeah, that’s right.” Dean slipped a hand behind Sam’s neck, dropping his head closer. “And you know who Leia got to kiss, in the end.”  
  
Sam raised his head to meet him, his fingers gripping Dean’s shirt behind his shoulder.  
  
They hadn’t kissed like this in weeks. Not since Dean’s birthday. Dean hadn’t dared to hope Sam would be ready again anytime soon, not with all the ways Dean had let him down—but Sam wasn’t letting go, didn’t seem interested in stopping. When he moaned, a pained little sound in his throat, Dean pulled back, looking at him anxiously.  
  
“You okay?”  
  
“Yeah.” With a ragged breath, Sam sat up, pulling his knees under him. His eyes were fixed on Dean’s face, one hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Dean, I—I want—”  
  
Dean’s breath hitched, and he rested his hand on Sam’s hip. In case Sam lost his balance, right, so he wouldn’t fall off the sofa and hurt himself. “Yeah, Sammy?” Neither of them seemed particularly eloquent tonight.  
  
Then Sam moved one knee over Dean’s lap, straddling and sinking down against him, chest to chest, groin to groin. Sam’s fingers pressed into the short hairs on the back of Dean’s neck as he kissed him again, hot and hungry and insistent, all ambiguity gone by the wayside.  
  
It was Dean’s turn to groan, the last sensible part of his brain struggling to be heard, even as his hips worked against Sam’s. “Sam—your ribs, I don’t wanna hurt you—”  
  
Sam huffed out a laugh, grinding back down deliberately against Dean. “You won’t. Not like this.”  
  
They shed their pants with some awkward fumbling, then returned to their former positions, Sam making hot, needy noises in his throat as he moved on top of Dean. Dean had a hand between them, holding their cocks together, pumping as they thrust. His other hand was clapped to the back of Sam’s neck, against his hot, slick skin.  
  
It didn’t take long for them to come, one after another, Sam’s shuddery breaths and hissing of Dean’s name pushing Dean over as well. Afterward, Sam didn’t move off of him. He kept his one free arm wrapped around Dean’s shoulders, kissing him just as hungrily, frantically, almost enough to get Dean started again.  
  
“Hey,” he muttered at last, tangling his fingers into Sam’s hair. “I’m just gonna reach for the tissue box, all right? Then we’re both going to bed, same place as last night.”  
  
Sam relented, pulling back with a more relaxed smile than Dean had seen in weeks.  
  
~  
  
When they did get to bed, Sam lay on his side in the most comfortable position he’d found, with one arm and ankle tangled with Dean’s. Dean had already fallen asleep, his breathing slow and regular.  
  
There was a lot to be scared of in the world. Freaks and hunters, Freak Camp and the ASC. Bad falls and food poisoning. Yet lying there, listening to Dean’s steady breathing, Sam could finally feel warm and safe for the first time since the hospital. But it wasn’t just the warmth of Dean’s arm twined with his, the comfort of the bed, the good meal they’d eaten, the mutual pleasure they’d had, or the long series of films they’d watched this week where the good guys always won. He felt safe, finally, because he felt sure of where they were again; of what their relationship could look like when they weren’t both afraid, and fucking up, and treating each other like glass.  
  
Sam and Dean Winchester had survived another day, and it had been a good one. A very good one, one he could not have even imagined in FREACS. That gave Sam hope that maybe, together, they didn’t even have to be afraid.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to anotheroracle, sylvia_locust, and whereupon for excellent feedback.
> 
> Thank you to quickreaver for raising this chapter's quality by like, a lot. A whole lot.

They’d been more stressed about leaving Fairmont than they’d wanted to admit, though they knew it was time to go long before Dean turned the Impala onto Interstate 90. Even before late April, when Pastor Jim gave them an estimate for the Larsons’ return from Florida and paired it with suggestions for other places the Winchesters could live in the area, Dean had begun to feel the change in the wind.  
  
Jim first asked to look over Sam’s schoolwork when they came over for one of his hearty dinners. Sam had been shy at first, but then seemed glad to get the opinion of someone as smart as the pastor about whether he was “doing it right.” In Dean’s opinion, there was no wrong way to do years’ backlog of schoolwork by yourself (Sam was badass just for trying), but he knew his opinion didn’t count for much on this topic.  
  
It sent up a flag, though, when Jim started talking about Sam enrolling at Fairmont Senior High. They’d built a safety in Fairmont: the people were friendly and no longer curious, Jim’s cooking was better than diner food, and it was easy to keep an eye on strangers coming to town. But for all of that, Dean didn’t think either of them would be happy stuck there past spring. More than once Sam had mentioned research he’d done at the library that could be useful to a future hunt, or some information he wanted passed to Bobby that might be a monster rather than a string of bad luck. Dean had been itching to get out of there, to get in his baby and ride as soon as the weather broke out of the oppressive snow and slush, and he thought that Sam was feeling the same way, especially since he’d gotten a clean bill of health from Dr. Gardner.  
  
Well, Dean  _had_ looked forward to the anonymity of the road, before he made the call back to Rochester Methodist Hospital.  
  
Some of the old doctor’s advice to Dean (beyond “Don’t take any wooden nickels,” which Dean had definitely hoped was a joke and which Sam had taken way more seriously than it called for) had been to check back with the doctors who had first set Sam’s bone.  
  
“I know I’ve got sharp eyes, but they had an X-ray,” Dr. Gardner said. “Might’ve done blood work, too. All of that could be important to make sure Sam’s in the best shape he can be.”  
  
The second the words were out of the good doctor’s mouth, Dean could have kicked himself, remembering Dr. Thomas. Probably she’d meant for him to call after one week, not twelve, but he still found her card intact in the pocket of a pair of jeans that he luckily hadn’t washed yet.  
  
Dean made the call in the library parking lot, while Sam was finishing up his volunteer shift. He turned the crumpled card in his fingers, the phone ringing in his ear.  
  
Just as he figured he’d try again later (or toss the card and not worry about it; Sam was doing fine), Dr. Thomas picked up, sounding professionally brisk. “Dr. Thomas speaking.”  
  
“Uh—hey, this is Dean Winchester. You got a minute?”  
  
“Ah,” she said, after a moment. “Dean. Yes, if you’ll hold on?” A pause, long enough to close a door or find a file, before she returned to the phone. “What can I do for you, Dean? How’s Sam recovering?”  
  
“Oh, awesome.” Dean glanced automatically back at the library. “He quit the sling a couple weeks ago, says he can sit up and lie down without it hurting. Much, anyway.” Dean still had some doubts about how Sam’s idea of “doesn’t hurt” compared to most people’s, especially since his breath still hitched when he got out of bed in the morning.  
  
“Did you find a doctor for follow-ups?” she asked, just as neutral as the last question, but he knew her opinion of him weighed on his answer, and he bit back a snappy retort.  
  
“Yeah, found a good one. He gave Sam a look-over about a dozen times, these last couple of months. He’s not too far away and he’s been around forever, you might know him—”  
  
“No, don’t tell me,” she said quickly. “I might be asked again, and I’d rather not lie.”  
  
“Who’d be asking?” Dean snapped—but he already knew.  
  
Well, not  _who_ exactly, though the name “Campbell” wasn’t a surprise. He didn’t know a cousin Alice, or know how much of a cousin she was, but it was chilling enough that they had shown up just  _hours_ after he and Sam had cleared out.  
  
Dean moved back to the shadow of the library wall, eyes scanning the streets, swearing silently at himself for leaving Sam alone—even though a quick glance through the window showed Sam helping someone work the printer.  
  
“What’d you tell her?” he said, a hint of growl in his voice.  
  
“What we had on record. The injuries, the reported cause of those injuries, the fact that we could detect nothing supernatural in his physiology. She wanted to confiscate our blood work, but an unfortunate laboratory mishap contaminated the vials, and they had to be discarded. Embarrassing, really.” Dr. Thomas’s voice was still impassively smooth, but Dean detected something underneath that would have made him grin under other circumstances (he respected a woman with guts), if he’d felt much beyond cold, escalating panic from the moment she said  _Campbell_.  
  
Winchesters weren’t afraid of anything, not even what could kill them, not even what went bump in the dark—but as long as he could remember, he and his father had run from Campbells.  
  
“Those, uh, vials.” Dean swallowed, mouth dry. “Any chance you...I don’t know, got anything from them, before the accident?”  
  
“I did. There was nothing to worry about, really. Nothing notable beyond mild anemia, as I recall. Sam should get a lot more iron in his diet. That can come from red meats, but those have other health disadvantages if they’re his exclusive nutrition source, so dark green salads like spinach are better in the long term.”  
  
“Those are his favorite.” Dean had to get off the phone. He had to get to Sam, get them both out of the open, a million things he should have done weeks ago to put them further under the radar, but he hadn’t done any of them, and  _fuck_ , they were  _fucked_. “Hey, I gotta go, but—thanks. Really.”  
  
“Sam should be fine, if you’ve had him checked out,” Dr. Thomas answered. “Be safe.”  
  
The ASC had been so close on their heels that the Winchesters could have held the door for them on their way into the hospital, and what had Dean and Sam done? Strolled over to a town not two hours away and put their feet up for the next three months.  
  
It took most of Dean’s self control not to let the civvies see his panic when he walked into the library and stopped at the end of the aisle where Sam was shelving. “You ready to head out, Sam?”  
  
“It’s not six o’clock yet and I’d like to—” The smile died on Sam’s face when he looked up and saw the expression on Dean’s. He put the book in his hands back down on the cart. “I’ll let Mandy know, and then we can go.”  
  
The drive back out to the cabin was quiet, both of them unwilling to break the silence over the radio.  
  
“What’s up?” Sam asked when they had finally sat down in the kitchen. He was tense, bracing himself, but his gaze was steady on Dean.  
  
“So—” Dean knew, even as he started, that this was probably the worst intro he could have managed, but he couldn’t help it. Ripping the band-aid off was the only way he knew to handle it. “Turns out the ASC showed up in Rochester about three hours after we blew the joint.”  
  
Sam blanched as Dean continued, trying to undo the worst of the scare. “They didn’t get anything useful. I think Dr. Thomas had the lab smash your test tubes —”  
  
“What test tubes?” Sam said, his voice utterly expressionless.  
  
“Some blood they drew, I guess, to run tests—”  
  
“You let them take my bl-blood? For  _t-tests_?” Sam stood, and Dean blinked at him. Sam’s fists were clenched, his mouth set in a thin, hard line, his eyes snapping in barely contained outrage. Part of Dean just wanted to savor the sight of Sam actually expressing  _anger_ toward  _him_ , but the part with the most sense knew better than to push Sam any further.  
  
“It’s a routine thing,” he said defensively. “I mean, they didn’t even ask me.”  
  
“Dean.” It was hard to tell whether Sam was more angry or terrified; his face still white but his eyes had gone dark, boring unblinking into Dean. “Didn’t you th-think—don’t you kn-know what they could have  _found?_ ”  
  
“An iron deficiency?”  
  
“This isn’t  _funny!_ ” Sam shouted, bright spots appearing on his cheeks. “How c-can you j-joke—”  
  
“Sam, I’m not!” Dean lifted his hands. “That’s all they found, okay? All it means is you get to have more salads—”  
  
Sam wasn’t appeased. “They could have f-found—” He gestured to indicate limitless possibilities too awful to name. “And that would’ve—th-that could’ve—” Either fury or fear pushed words out of his reach, and he dropped his hand back to his side, vehemence flickering like a flare burned out. “I don’t know how you’d be able to l-look at me if—”  
  
Dean had a powerful and completely useless desire for a drink. “Sam, I could sit here all day and tell you that nothing they could have found would’ve changed anything. Fuck, I  _have_ told you that, but that doesn’t fucking matter because they  _didn’t_ find anything. That’s two doctors now who have taken a good hard look at you, inside and out, and said you’re in the clear. We should throw a fucking party.”  
  
“You don’t understand,” Sam said, scared and earnest and angry still, under the surface of his tight control, where Dean could barely make it out. “And I can’t…” He shook his head, as though to lose a mosquito that had already broken the skin. “They got too close,” he said instead. “M-maybe we should…”  
  
“Leave town?” Dean felt a wave of relief in his bones. They had been in this place too long. Good as it had been for Sam, necessary as it had been for his healing, Dean was ready to hit the road. And even if they were leaving now because they were fleeing a phantom with the sharpest teeth, at least they would be a moving target. Leaving would also neatly sidestep Jim’s increasingly insistent hints about more formal schooling for Sammy, something that Dean wasn’t even sure how to answer besides _hell no_.  
  
“Yeah.” Sam nodded sharply. “I’ll call the l-library, let them know that I’m g-going to be leaving soon.”  
  
“I’ll call Jim,” Dean agreed.  
  
~*~  
  
They left Blue Earth for reasons outside the desire to travel, but their drive south wasn’t aimless.  
  
Dean had racked his brains for the best way to celebrate Sam’s seventeenth birthday, since his kid had brought him the best fucking homemade breakfast in bed a guy could ask for. Back when he had been planning to do what they could in Fairmont, Dean had pursued a lot of little ideas that he knew Sam would like. The Impala’s back seat had another box of books he’d picked up at the secondhand shop, and a couple CDs from Shady Raptor Records, each carefully wrapped in salvaged funny papers. But no matter what he could come up with, there was an essential problem with anything that Dean could give Sam inside or outside of Fairmont.  
  
What could possibly be good enough for Sam’s first birthday outside Freak Camp?  
  
Nothing that Dean could manage without shaking down heaven and earth, that’s what. He had some tentative ideas: throwing a party with Pastor Jim (not that he had asked the man yet), or scrounging together some seeds, planters, and maybe a book on growing them to match his newfound fascination with spring and flowers. As the weather warmed, any daylight hours Sam wasn’t needed at the library he had spent taking notes outdoors, flipping through his biology book and another borrowed book on the local flora.  
  
But once they started driving, Dean knew exactly where they should head.  
  
Sam had asked if they should scan for a hunt before choosing a direction, but Dean had shaken his head, saying _dude, you just stopped rattling when you walk, let’s not push our luck_. Instead he suggested going somewhere warmer for a change, and they drove south.  
  
Their speed slowed through St. Louis. Dean pulled off the I-44 highway toward Soulard, muttering about an old restaurant that had the best hot dogs ever (at least he’d thought so in junior high). When they found it, Sam got a basic hot dog with mustard while Dean got the chili cheese dog, and both were damn good (though Dean admitted there were one or two other places that might give them a run for their money now).  
  
“Whaddaya say we hole up at that place down the street for the night?” Dean asked around his last mouthful, washing it down with his last swig of soda. “Or maybe the weekend, there’s lots to see in the Lou.”  
  
Sam turned to look at the Radisson Hotel that Dean nodded toward, then looked back at him in surprise. Dean had to admit the surprise had merit. They usually bunked in smaller motels on the edge of town—a step up from the dumps Dean had lived in with John, but still could best be described as  _homey_. Once or twice they’d hit a Holiday Inn when Dean hadn’t liked the look of any of the nearest motels, but they’d never shelled out for a Radisson.  
  
Dean shrugged in answer. “Figured we could use a treat after making it out of Minnesota, right?”  
  
Sam still looked puzzled, but didn’t ask questions. As they walked inside the spacious lobby, however, his eyes widened. Grinning, Dean took Sam’s hand, swinging it on their walk to the front desk. A little sweet talk with the attractive young receptionist, and he managed to wrangle a deluxe for the price of a regular room. He winked at Sam as they headed to the elevator, and Sam smiled tentatively back.  
  
The smile grew when they stepped into the suite and Sam took in the vista: a bedroom and separate living room; a bathroom that, even from the door, Dean could see had a fucking jacuzzi; and furniture that aped actual classy stuff that you would find in a mansion, all dark wood, intricate carvings, and sapphire brocade. This decor included the king-size bed that dominated the bedroom. Dean thought that for once they could probably sleep together without either of them in danger of rolling off the bed.  
  
Instead of their usual routine of unpacking toiletries and setting security measures, Sam drifted to the huge bed and sat down on it. After a moment, he lay back with a soft exhale, full of wonder and contentment.  
  
Dean handled the salt lines himself and joined him, stretching out with a throaty groan that made Sam’s eyes widen. “Next best thing to Magic Fingers,” Dean told him.  
  
Sam’s fingers stole over, resting lightly over Dean’s ribs. “What are Magic Fingers?”  
  
“Oh man, it’s like heaven on earth. It’s this vibrating massage bed that’s just the best fucking thing, Sammy—well, second to having your hands on me. Nothing beats that.” Dean turned to him, catching Sam’s hand to lace their fingers together.  
  
Sam’s smile was wider, beautifully unselfconscious. “Is it bad that I don’t think I can get up right now?”  
  
“Nah, sounds perfect. We’ll order room service later.” Dean squeezed Sam’s fingers. “Looks like we’re stuck here together.”  
  
~*~  
  
Sam still didn’t suspect anything the next day as they pulled up in front of the Missouri Botanical Gardens. He frowned at the lettering across the front of the building, craning his neck to see it through the windshield. “Why are we here?”  
  
Dean could barely keep his grin off his face, but he didn’t want to spoil the surprise. “Tell you inside,” he said, getting out of the car and leaving Sam to follow.  
  
He slowed down once they got their tickets and found the entrance to the gardens. Other visitors walked the paths: solitary individuals, some families with small children, but beyond steering Sam toward the more secluded, quieter pathways, Dean barely noticed anyone else. His focus was Sam, how he peered and then gaped at the neatly trimmed shrubbery and the brilliant flowers hanging from the branches, both breathtaken and bemused.  
  
He glanced over at Dean every so often, eyes shining, to see if Dean was marveling with him, and Dean let out the grin that he’d been holding.  
  
They didn’t speak until they crossed a bridge that brought them to a large tree with dark bark, its branches drooping with clusters of pale pink flowers. Sam stopped underneath, gazing upward while a couple stray petals drifted down on him, and Dean stopped beside him.  
  
“You planned this,” Sam said, eyes locked on the blossoms as one drifted down from its perch toward their heads. “It’s beautiful, and you wanted us to be here today.” He lowered his gaze to look at Dean. “Why? Why are we here?”  
  
This was more than Dean could take. He tugged Sam in for a kiss, moving one hand to touch Sam’s cheek and jaw. It was slow, sweet, hardly any pressure behind it. When they stopped, Dean turned his mouth to Sam’s ear and whispered, “Happy birthday, Sammy.”  
  
Sam jerked back, shock in his face now, though he didn’t drop Dean’s hand. “I...I forgot.” He half-laughed, but it sounded a little choked. “You, y-you’re the one who first told me about b-birthdays—I remember, but I’d forgotten. Even when—you brought me—but I’d f-forgotten completely, the last few—”  
  
“Hey, it’s okay.” Dean pulled Sam to his side, one arm around his shoulders. Sam leaned his head against Dean’s chest, struggling to even out his breathing.  
  
“I’m not supposed to forget things,” he said, low, against Dean’s shirt.  
  
Dean rubbed Sam’s shoulder with one hand. “You remembered mine just fine.”  
  
“Yeah, because it’s  _yours_.” Sam straightened to lift his head, smiling again, if a little wobbly. “But you told me mine, and I forgot.”  
  
“Well, so long as you remember mine and I remember yours, we’re good.” Something hurt in Dean’s chest—not exactly like something cracking, but like an old bruise pinched. “Hey, you made me breakfast. I wanted...something for you, for the same reason.”  
  
“I made you breakfast because I love you,” Sam said, matter-of-fact as he was when taking inventory on their ammunition or listing out the variables for one of his math problems. “Just like you did this for me because you love me.”  
  
Dean stilled completely, not even able to breathe. Maybe he’d gotten pollen in his ears. He couldn’t have heard Sam say  _that_. Not when Dean had never heard him say it before. Just because, what, Dean had taken him to some gardens? If he’d known, he could have done this months ago, or, hell, in the very first week. And what was Sam doing, giving Dean something like that on his own birthday?  
  
Then Dean tightened his arm around Sam, pulling him close even as Sam peeked up at him for a reaction. Dean dropped his chin to steal a kiss, first on Sam’s lips, then throat, then anywhere he could reach. With a smile Dean could feel against his skin, Sam returned the kisses with enthusiasm.

by [](http://quickreaver.livejournal.com/profile)[quickreaver](http://quickreaver.livejournal.com/)  


  
~*~  
  
The thing that amazed Sam the most was how he hadn’t suspected the surprise at all. Sure, he had known that Dean pointed them south on purpose, but he couldn’t have imagined the Botanical Garden, and his birthday hadn’t even been on his radar.  
  
The next morning, sitting at the table by the window with a fresh newspaper he found outside their door, his eyes kept straying to Dean’s sleeping form in the bed. The memory of last night, how they tugged each other into that bed and kicked their jeans off, flushed his cheeks with heat. He hadn’t been sure, after seeing Dean wrapped around that woman months ago, that Dean would kiss him the same way, that Dean touching him could feel the same as it used to, that he could even be satisfied with a—with someone like Sam. But after yesterday, Sam found himself believing for the first time that maybe Dean had meant it when he’d said that Sam would be the only one for him now.  
  
That didn’t mean that Dean would always feel that way, of course, but it was thrilling enough now.  
  
Still smiling, Sam highlighted another passage in the article, cross-referenced the information with what he’d found on the local library’s online archive, and sat back. He probably shouldn’t be happy, looking at yet another sign of supernatural activity right in the St. Louis area, but it felt good to be researching again, with the promise of hunting in the near future. The question was whether Dean would let them look into it.  
  
Sam understood the importance of letting bones knit properly before exposing them to stress. Or at least he understood the theory. But camp had taught him what his body could take, what stresses it could handle before it broke again, and Dean didn’t need to worry about him. He felt more than ready to kick some supernatural ass.  
  
Dean moved and mumbled in the bed, rubbing one hand over his face and then blinking at Sam with bleary eyes. “Working on something, Sammy?”  
  
Sam held up the paper with his careful notations. “Our next case.”  
  
Dean blinked, and he looked for a second like he wanted to argue, like he would say again that Sam’s shoulder wasn’t healed enough, that he had to rest up just one more week or one more month. Then he shook his head slightly and sat up in the bed, rubbing the back of one hand along his morning stubble. “Local?”  
  
“Yes. Maybe twenty minutes north of here.”  
  
Dean stretched out a hand. “Lay it on me.”  
  
Giving him a slight smile, Sam handed the paper over.  
  
The situation felt like a straightforward haunting, though maybe one of the more gruesome ones. There had been a few suspicious incidents in the neighborhood (culminating in a suspected freak that the ASC had picked up two years ago), but none of that had been enough to prevent the Mitchelson family from choking to death a few days ago. Official reports dismissed it as “asphyxiation, cause unknown, gas leak suspected,” but Sam wondered if whoever wrote the reports was as wary of the ASC as he and Dean were.  
  
The more significant indication of repeating supernatural activity was the discovery that the Dalton family had died in a similar way sixty years ago in the same neighborhood. The old records described them as “drowned in nothing but air.” The newspaper article from the period had contained a distorted image of the family taken just a week before the incident, the six members of the Dalton family staring soberly at the camera, the occasional hand or face moving too quickly to be perfectly caught by the technology. They looked, Sam thought, almost like they knew that something was coming for them, though perhaps that was a projection. Photographs had been different then, and not everyone smiled like they did on the TV.  
  
When Sam and Dean rode into the quiet suburb, a public works van idled on the corner, and a handful of hazmat-suited workers were moving in and out of the Mitchelson home. A couple of small boys, worn basketballs forgotten in their arms, watched from closer than they should have.  
  
Both of the Mitchelsons’ next-door neighbors had been out of town when the family died, but the Grant family across the street had been home. Sam and Dean parked on the edge of their property and watched the public works crew for a few minutes. It seemed like what a couple of average guys would do, and no one watching them would guess they were looking for any hint that the official investigation had uncovered a supernatural cause. The Winchesters had to be careful, not so much for the supernatural threat, but because the ASC would be on this town in two heartbeats if it got any kind of confirmation that what had happened here was not part of the natural order of the world.  
  
Sam adjusted his overshirt, grateful he no longer had a sling. He’d understood the necessity for it, but every moment he had worn it made his spine itch, aware how vulnerable it made him appear.  
  
“Okay, Sammy,” Dean said. “We’re looking into genealogies, old town history, neat junk, that sort of thing. I’ll distract ‘em with my charm, and you can ask the questions, okay?”  
  
“Got it, Dean.” They’d talked about their game plan in the hotel room as well, and Sam couldn’t help but smile as he followed Dean to the Grant family’s door. He half-suspected that Dean might be more nervous than he was to get back into hunting.  
  
The woman who cracked the door open couldn’t have been much older than Dean. From what they could see through the narrow opening, she had her dark hair pulled back tight and dark circles under her narrowed eyes. “Yes?”  
  
Dean gave her his most engaging smile, despite the chain spanning the gap. “Hi, we’re in the area looking into some of the history of the St. Louis area for my kid brother’s class project on energy disasters, and we’re wondering if you knew anything about the family that died in the gas leak?”  
  
She stared at him for a moment, unblinking, and Sam shifted uneasily. Something felt off, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. Then her eyes widened.  
  
“You’re goddamn hunters,” she breathed.  
  
Sam stepped in front of Dean, because if words could be poison, they’d already be dead. She’d said  _hunters_ the way Dean said  _cops_ , and other hunters said  _freaks_ , and the way monsters in camp had breathed  _Crusher_.  
  
“How  _dare_ you come here,” she said, voice shaking and eyes narrowed in fury, and this was going wrong so very quickly, Sam didn’t know what had given them away, what had gone wrong. He’d worried that people would figure out that he was a monster, not that they would guess that he and Dean were here to save them from one.  
  
“You goddamn bastards take away my brother,” she said, volume rising, “and you have the guts to come back here and—get the  _fuck_ off my porch! You think you can ask your questions and get fucking answers when he’s—get  _out_ of here, I’m not telling you shit, go!  _Go_ , you motherfuckers!” She slammed the door shut, and a bolt shot home.  
  
There was nothing to be said. As one, they turned and walked away, Dean bringing his arm around Sam’s back as they hustled off that porch and to the Impala.  
  
Inside the car, Dean jingled his keys in his hands, looking rattled. Sam pulled his hands close to his chest, trying to get them warm, even though the day had been pleasant just before. “We could try another house,” Dean said, eyes focused on the street ahead, “but I don’t like going in blind when I don’t know what the fuck happened back there. Let’s hit a bar, do some recon before we stick our heads in a wasp’s nest.”  
  
Sam couldn’t do much more than nod. He still felt shocked that anyone in the real world would treat hunters (even those they just believed to be hunters, without proof) that way. He didn’t want to think about the repercussions if they’d really represented the ASC—or what might have happened to that woman’s brother. It twisted his stomach unpleasantly. He’d seen countless monsters arrive at Freak Camp—monsters of all ages, sizes, and temperaments—but he’d never once thought about those they’d left behind as anything but glad to have them removed from their lives.  
  
But Dean was right. They still had a case before them, and they needed more info before they tried to confront any more hostile witnesses who might recognize them as hunters.  
  
~*~  
  
As it turned out, the little town had had enough contact with the ASC that most of the locals could spot a hunter from twenty paces. Or at least as soon as they started asking questions.  
  
Dean looked unnerved when the first response to his faux-casual, “Heck of a weird thing, wasn’t it, that Mitchelson death?” was “Why, you hunters? Fuck, you are, aren’t you?” The jumpiness didn’t ease when the barkeep called out, “Hey, hunters are back!” loud enough to be heard in the far corners of the bar.  
  
Within moments they were surrounded by a handful of fellow drinkers asking about cases they’d worked, where they’d been, how many freaks they’d put down. Sam kept his eyes down, even when one skinny guy with an afro poking out from underneath a Red Sox cap said, “Hey, little young for this, ain’t you?”  
  
That comment almost made him tear for the door, if that wouldn’t have meant leaving Dean. Instead Sam breathed out carefully through his nose, didn’t look up or respond, and kept close to Dean. It hadn’t been said like _that_ , anyway.  
  
But the press of bodies reminded him of a gang of vamps circling some poor bastard in camp. He wasn’t panicking yet, but there was a buzzy sort of adrenaline under his skin that he didn’t think was a good sign. He’d felt this way when he’d scaled the truck to get at the troll, or when he’d tackled the yeti. He didn’t think it was very safe to feel like that in a bar full of reals who posed them no physical threat (at least as far as he could tell).  
  
That didn't mean these guys couldn't blow Sam and Dean's cover out of the water if they started talking to the ASC. Dean tried at first to bluff their way out.  
  
“Are you guys serious? Us? No way we’re hunters.” He pulled out his best  _nothing to find here, officer_ grin. “Why would we—”  
  
But no one was buying it. “You’re asking about the Mitchelsons,” said a heavy-set guy with thick glasses and a battered wedding ring the color of aged copper. “And trying to get  _information_ about it.”  
  
“You’ve got a fucking rad car,” said the Red Sox cap guy, with enthusiasm. “But you’re real young to be asking questions.”  
  
“I’m legal!” Dean said, as the bartender handed him another beer.  
  
“You’re also carrying,” said a guy with long braids tied back. “And the trunk of your car’s too heavy.”  
  
“Which makes you hunters, or serial killers!” The round-faced guy with droopy eyelids, who completed the quartet (a little drunker than his buddies, and a little more of a threat in Sam’s eyes), laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world.  
  
His friend—acquaintance?—with the braids gave him a look, then turned back. “So, hunters.”  
  
Dean took a drink.  
  
Eventually he gave in and answered the questions. “Yeah, we’re checking it out” and “No, no solids yet, but we think spirit” and later, after the alcohol had kicked in (or he had gotten over the shock of being discovered), “Man, we tried checking out the neighborhood, but this nutcase chick told us to get the fuck off her porch before she called the cops. You guys know anything about that?”  
  
The drunkest guy raised his glass cheerfully. “You must’ve met Karen Grant. Crazy freakfucker.”  
  
Sam flinched, then shifted closer to Dean's side, hoping no one had noticed. They didn't say anything, at least.  
  
“Pretty sure she wasn’t fucking him,” said the guy with braids, who’d introduced himself as Darryl, rolling the edge of his bottle around the counter. “I mean, her brother?” He must have caught something on Dean’s face, because he elaborated. “There was suspicious shit going down at the community college, where her brother went. Guess they narrowed it down to him, because the next day he was gone, poof, just like that.”  
  
“Let me guess,” Dean said. “‘They’ are a government agency, starts with A ends with C?” He was trying for humor, but there was something tight in his tone, and Sam could have sworn that he was paler than he had been just moments before.  
  
Darryl tapped his nose with one long finger. “Damn, that wasn’t pretty. The Grants called the cops when the ASC showed up, didn’t have a fucking clue what was going on. Their girl never stopped screaming.”  
  
“I heard they’re still trying to get blood off the porch,” Steve, the red-faced guy, said, taking a swig of his drink. “I heard they cut the freak’s throat, and it just healed up just like that, not a fucking mark on it.”  
  
Sam swallowed hard, keeping his eyes on the counter and the Coke that Dean had bought him. This wasn’t camp. This wasn’t memories of camp, or even something that he could remember happening to him. This was someone else’s life, and having a panic attack right here and now would not help him, or Dean, or the victims of the new supernatural threat terrorizing the town. “W-what was he doing?” He hoped his voice did not quaver too much.  
  
“I heard he was cutting up cats and shit, making sacrifices, that sort of thing, made him fucking invulnerable or some shit,” Steve said, downing the last of his beer.  
  
Arnie, the one in the baseball cap, clarified. “He was researching some of the more arcane shit in the library, started sleepwalking and talking about a voice that was coming for him, fucked up stuff, man.” He noticed his other buddies staring at him, and his eyes widened. “You hear stuff! I live down there, guys, you can’t say you’ve never talked about that shit. That’s crazy shit, guys, I ain’t into that shit, I’m no freaklover!”  
  
“Whatever. And now we’ve got the Mitchelson shit in town, too. Right after Grandma Mitchelson’s centennial birthday,” Darryl added. “They even threw this huge fucking party maybe two weeks before, had a bonfire, let the old lady show off stuff she’d saved up, jewelry and things. Happy family shit on a mega scale.” He sighed. “Sucks.”  
  
Sam’s head snapped up. He knew, then, he fucking  _knew_ , and he tried to give Dean a  _look_ , something to let him know that they had to get out of there that moment because not only did Sam know what had been killing people, but they might already be too late to stop it from happening again.  
  
Whatever Dean saw in his face got him moving.  
  
“Well, thanks for the advice, dudes. And if you could keep this under your hats for the next few days, we’d appreciate it.” He threw a couple twenties onto the bar, his movements charged, lacking Dean’s usual good humor and careless energy. “Have a round on us.”  
  
“Good luck! And if you get stuck, you can always call 666!” Steve called after them and then laughed into his next drink, while the other two chuckled and Darryl stared after their departing backs.  
  
Sam hurried after Dean. The cool air outside was refreshing after the claustrophobic bar interior. “W-why would we call 666?” he asked, catching his breath. Terror had not hit him that hard in a while.  
  
“It’s a bad joke,” Dean said, distantly. He wasn’t looking at Sam. “For a while folks talked about having a special hotline for the ASC, like 911 but for supernatural shit. Assholes like that think it would be funny if it were 666.”  
  
“But there is a number for the ASC.” Sam had filed reports, when he was allowed to work in the library. He could repeat by heart the phone number and all eight specialized extensions.  
  
“Yeah, Sam, it’s a really stupid joke.” Dean looked vacant, and more tired than their day warranted. “You okay?”  
  
Sam blinked, because sure, they were both a little shaken, but that wasn’t why they’d had to leave, and then he realized that Dean was still back there, thinking about whatever he had been thinking about when the reals (though “the assholes” kept floating to his mind as another name for them) had been telling them about that poor woman and her freak brother. “I think I have a lead on the case.”  
  
Dean blinked, turning to look at him directly at last. “Damn. Okay. Where are we going, Sammy?”  
  
Sam told him and, moments later, Dean gunned the Impala out of the bar parking lot.  
  
Later, Sam would wonder at the belongings that people had, the stuff that made up a real life. The floor was covered in stuffed animals, papers, clothes—including a dress shirt, the cuffs torn where the cufflinks had been yanked out. All this debris was tangled at the feet of the monster now possessing one of the clean-up crew workers, his hands grasping to close their airways. Whether the hazmat suits hadn’t been enough protection against the artifact (the cufflinks were either cursed or haunted, Sam would’ve needed more research to say for sure), or the workers hadn’t been smart enough to run an EMF scanner over the entire house, Sam didn’t know. But he knew that that particular possession had cost this family their lives, and now seemed intent on taking even more.  
  
Sam had figured out, recalling the old photographs in the online newspaper records, that the killer wasn’t a flesh-and-blood monster seeking prey, or a spirit that slept and woke according to a strict schedule. He had seen a set of cufflinks in an old photograph of the Dalton family taken before their tragic death, and one of the men’s wrists was blurred in the image. He’d thought at the time it was just a flaw in the photograph, but ghosts had been known to cause that sort of distortion. And his gut said that it wasn’t just an action blur.  
  
The workman wearing the cufflinks now looked at them with wide, wild eyes, the whites bloodshot, his pupils washed out by black-light blue.  
  
“You cannot stop us,” he hissed, hands stretched out like claws. Sam had already seen those claws in action on another crew member, currently gasping on the floor in his torn hazmat suit. The claws hadn’t left any visible wounds, but they had dropped him immediately to the floor, writhing, struggling and failing to breathe. Dean had hit him with blessed salt, forcing some of it into his mouth, and the man had been able to get air into his lungs again, though he remained on the floor, pale and shuddering.  
  
“We’re sure as hell going to try,” Dean said, and he fired a blessed-salt shotgun round dead-center into his chest.  
  
He didn’t go down then. It took both Sam and Dean pinning him to the floor, cutting the cufflinks off his wrists (they had fused into his skin) and lighting them on fire right in the middle of the living room. Then, finally, the man ceased screaming and thrashing.  
  
Dean used a curtain to snuff the flames, and then to wrap the man’s bleeding wrists. The Winchesters were panting hard, but any shakiness was just from adrenaline.  
  
The man who had been attacked by his coworker was still awake, chest heaving, watching them with large eyes but making no attempt to speak. Sam picked up a telephone from a nearby end table, dialed 911, and pressed the phone into the man’s hand. As he slowly lifted it to his ear and they heard the operator’s voice say, “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”, Sam and Dean rushed out of the house.  
  
They’d just left the subdivision when they heard sirens wailing on the street behind them.  
  
Sam held onto his shotgun as they drew closer to the hotel. With his free hand, he withdrew the map from the door pocket, spreading it open to find the best route out of town.  
  
~  
  
After bringing their duffels out of the hotel, Dean opened the trunk. Sam handed him his bag to store, then moved away, most of him already on the road, planning their route, hoping that they could get far enough away before the hunters were back on their trail. As he started to open the shotgun door, however, he realized Dean hadn’t moved.  
  
Sam turned back. “Dean? You okay?”  
  
As Dean finally closed the trunk, the fading evening sun illuminated his face, showing unexpected strain, something Sam would not have expected at the end of a successful hunt without injury to either of them. Concerned, Sam took a step forward.  
  
“Sam.” Dean paused, leaning forward onto the trunk with both hands. “Sam, I fucked up.”  
  
Incredulous, Sam scanned Dean over for any sign of what he meant, where he might be bleeding. They’d put the monster to rest, no one had died… “What do you mean?”  
  
Dean bit his lip. “Sam, you’ve...you’ve got a family out there. Parents, maybe a pack of siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. People who probably remembered your birthday this week, too.”  
  
Sam blinked at him, confused. The comment seemed so completely out of nowhere, they hadn’t even—but then he knew. The Grants. The boy dragged away, his sister still weeping and screaming years later. Dean was wondering if Sam had anyone like that. But he’d already considered the possibility.  
  
Slowly, Sam said, “That...seems unlikely.”  
  
Dean’s shoulders twitched, almost a flinch. “Seriously, Sam. Chances are someone’s out there who remembers you, who knows your whole name, what time of day you were born, all that. They could tell you your whole history, who you are. Because it’s not just from that—that shithole.”  
  
Sam said nothing, not to Dean’s harsh intensity, nor when his voice rose louder, higher, sharper.  
  
After a breath, Dean continued more quietly, but with a different kind of desperation. “Look, Sam, I’m sorry. I never thought—I mean, I could have looked for your family while I was waiting to get you out, while the fucking paperwork went through. I should have looked for them, instead of thinking I could just, I dunno, call you a Winchester and keep you all for myself. You deserve to have a real family.”  
  
Sam took a sharp breath and braced himself with one hand against the Impala’s frame. He needed something under him, the smooth metal reassuring him that the world wasn’t going to give way under his feet. “Dean.” Sam didn’t know where to start. Dean waited, eyes steady on him now, finally. At last Sam said, softly, “You remember your mom, even though you were younger than I was when I w-went there. D-don’t you think I’d r-remember them, if I had them?”  
  
“If you had—”  
  
“A family,” Sam said. “People who loved me.”  
  
Dean shrugged slightly, a hunch of his shoulders upward. “I dunno, brains are weird. It doesn’t mean —”  
  
“Dean, I don’t remember  _anyone_.” Sam tried to keep his voice level. “Just Becca. And you. I have a family now, and I’m a Winchester. Sam Winchester. You told me so.” The last words were more pleading, more question, more accusation, than he meant them to be.  
  
Dean straightened, though he didn’t step around the car. “Yeah, Sam. ‘Course you are.”  
  
Sam took another steadying breath. “Then I don’t need any other family. We don’t know how, what happened—who might have tipped off the ASC, anyway. And even if they didn’t—they think I died. Like Karen does. They buried me years ago. I’m not going back to haunt them.”  
  
If anything, Dean looked more unhappy at that, but just coughed and said, “If you’re worried about someone dousing you in lighter fluid—”  
  
Sam snorted. “Yeah, Dean, that’s it. C’mon, let’s go.”  
  
Settled in the front seat, Sam readjusted the map on his lap, fingers tracing interstates and roads as he talked with Dean about where to go next and how far they’d get tonight. He knew he ought to be more worried about how close the ASC might be behind them, especially considering the number of people who might describe their faces, but he’d never felt anything but safe with Dean behind the Impala’s wheel, accelerating on the open road. Here, no one could touch them. This is where he—where they both—belonged.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warning for this chapter: graphic violence (though not quite on Part One levels!).
> 
> Also, the setting and atmosphere in this one may be a *teensy* bit inspired by True Detective.
> 
> Thank you to anotheroracle, sylvia_locust, firesign10, and whereupon for excellent feedback.

Every high school, no matter how bland and soul-sucking it appeared during the day, took on a different character at night, something creepy and sinister: the vast darkness of the halls punctuated by the blinking of smoke alarms and the occasional distant flicker of an emergency light. Minden High, save for its dependable brown brick and the occasional window lit by the streetlights, was no different from a dozen others that Dean had wandered at night with no more than a flashlight to guide him.

Of course, only a handful of those times had involved Dean scouting to catch a spirit in the act.

He and Sam turned left toward the administrative offices, silent as ghosts themselves except for the whine of the EMF reader in Sam’s hand, until Dean saw a flicker of light beneath the office door. Dean froze and raised a hand to stop Sam behind him.  

Dean turned off his own flashlight, motioned Sam to the side. He dearly loved breaking down doors (it wasn’t something he could do much outside of hunts), but he didn’t want Sam to catch any splinters when the wood burst. Dean gathered himself, then moved forward, kicking the wooden door in with a satisfying _crack_ as the lock and lintel gave way, leaping through it, leading with his gun.

A shadowy figure whirled by the filing cabinets in the corner, then lobbed something toward Dean’s head. He ducked instinctively, bringing his gun up, but the throw had been bad to begin with, and the projectile—something blobby and shapeless—burst as it hit his arm. The air filled with a substance between smoke and dust, blocking out the thin light from the windows just as Sam came around with his gun at the ready. The last thing Dean saw, before he had to shut his irritated eyes and cough from the powder clogging his lungs, was his assailant disappearing deeper into the offices.

Sam let out a frustrated hiss. “Do we go after him?”

Dean would have answered, had there been enough clean air in his lungs to breathe.

~

Sam didn’t know why Dean always had to be the one to break down doors. Sam was pretty sure he could manage it, if only Dean would let him try. It was more a question of what angle one applied the force rather than actual strength or size, and his smaller frame meant he had less chance of being hit on the other side.

Their assailant rabbited as soon as he’d thrown his missile, and everything in Sam wanted to chase him, to bring him down for attacking Dean, but he wasn’t sure that in the maze of offices that would be a good idea. There could be nooks and crannies and more ways out than either of the Winchesters knew.

And Dean was still coughing.

“You okay?” Sam asked.

Dean shook his head, rubbing at his eyes with his jacket sleeve. “Fuck, Sammy, this crap got in my eyes.”

“Is it hurting you?” Sam felt his stomach lurch.

“I just can’t see for shit.”

Sam cast one more regretful glance in the direction the fugitive had gone, and sighed. “Let’s find a bathroom.”

Dean grasped Sam’s shoulder, and Sam led them to the nearest bathroom, painted an irregular white over decades of faintly visible graffiti. Sam turned the lock just for safety’s sake, then flicked on the light. Dean kept rubbing at his eyes. The powder had been fine and black, settling over Dean’s face with a strange sheen like oil on water. The blackness was thicker right around his eyes, where his rubbing had left swirls. Sam turned on the faucet, yanking out some paper towels and wetting them. He had to grab Dean’s wrist to stop him from pawing at his eyes so that he could begin wiping at the caked crud.

Some of it came off, but a discoloration remained, darkest around his eyes and streaking back to his hairline. After Sam had removed the worst of the crud, Dean was still blinking, his hands reaching up to rub again.

“It’s not doing shit, Sammy. Here, give me that and turn the lights on, and maybe I’ll be able to get some more off.”

Sam looked at his second paper towel coated with black muck, and then up at the fluorescent lighting that burned through the tiny space. He felt cold, suddenly. “Dean...the lights are on.”

Dean straightened then, his eyes going wide, staring and unfocused. Abruptly, he turned and slammed his fist against the sink counter behind him. “Son of a _bitch_. Sam, I can’t—I can’t fucking _see_.”

Sam drew in a slow, shuddering breath. Now that he was looking, he could see the oddness of the pattern, how it seemed to indicate shapes and symbols that felt familiar in his gut, but not to his head. “Dean, I think...that was a witch. You’ve been hexed.”

~*~

Sam went back to collect the remains of the hex bag, using paper towels to keep the powder off his hands. He stored the well-wrapped package in his pocket and then led Dean by his hand out of the school. At first he warned him about turns and steps, but after Dean had stumbled more than once over nothing, Sam wrapped an arm around his waist, his gun ready in his other hand in case the witch came back. His warnings became more a running commentary on what they were passing, where they were now, something to keep himself from panic as much as to keep Dean from falling.

By the time they got to the Impala—Sam helped Dean into the shotgun seat, then took the keys, started the engine and turned them back toward the motel—outrage had worked its way past Dean’s initial shock. He swore, quietly at first, and then with increasing volume, viciousness, and color until he was pounding his fist against the dashboard with almost every syllable.

Sam drove with even more caution than usual, his mouth shut tight, squeezing the wheel so his hands wouldn’t shake. He was grateful that Dean wouldn’t be able to see the flinches he couldn’t hide.

Then Dean stopped cursing and said in a different tone, “Sam?”

“Yeah?” Sam looked over immediately, anxious about any new effects of the witch’s curse.

Dean exhaled, the tension in his shoulders releasing fractionally. Sam noticed how he sat: back pressed taut to the seat, one arm braced against the shotgun window, the other stretched across the seat back. Like he was afraid he might slip away if he stopped holding on so hard.

“Hey,” Sam said, and let go of the steering wheel with his right hand to grab Dean’s outstretched arm. Dean returned the grip at once, squeezing tight. “We’re going to be okay.” It took an effort to say, but once the words were out, something loosened in his chest. He knew it to be true. “I’m going to fix this. We’re going to find the witch and—” He released his own shaky breath, the possibilities unfolding before him. “We’re going to undo this, _soon_.”

“‘Course we are.” Dean was trying to sound confident, nonchalant. “It’s just a fucking bitch, is all. Son of a bitch. I can’t even fucking _shoot_ the asshole.”

“I can,” Sam said.

Dean was quiet for a long minute. “Yeah, but it may not come to that. Gunshots get messy. There can be other ways to handle a witch, scare ‘em straight.”

Sam let go of Dean’s arm and gripped the steering wheel again. “We’ll see.”

When they got to the motel, Sam parked as close as he could to their room, but he still had to lead Dean over the curb to their door, throwing wary glances around to make sure no one was watching. He felt the tension in Dean’s hand, through his halting steps, and then they were inside. Sam flung the door shut, threw the bolts, and let out a sigh of relief.

Dean reached for the wall and slowly walked around the perimeter of the room, stumbling around the dressers and TV stand, groping at the edge of the closet and sink. Sam watched, feeling a tightness in his chest; then he drew a deep breath, straightened his shoulders, and focused. Moving to the table, he used his sleeve to protect his hand while removing the remains of the hex bag from his pocket, careful to shake any last scraps out of the lining of his pocket. He took off his jacket, tying the sleeves in a knot and dropping it on the combination TV stand and dresser, so he wouldn’t forget to purify it before wearing it again.

“I’m going to analyze what was in the hex bag,” he told Dean, who was fiddling with the faucet at the sink and swearing quietly to himself. He hadn’t turned on the light. Sam crossed the room to get the notebook that he used for recording the details of their hunts. “Can you tell me if you see anything, like flickers, images, light, color?”

“Fuck no, not a fucking thing.” Dean’s voice was tight. He stood in front of the sink, one fist resting on the lintel of the bathroom door.

Sam took a steadying breath. “Dean, could you—come sit by me? I want to see if we can reverse this ourselves.”

Dean paused, then swung around and moved unsteadily back to the bed. Sam jumped up to guide him to the table. He pulled up a chair for Dean and took the other himself, pulling his notebook closer. Once he sat, Dean’s hand dropped to Sam’s knee. Sam squeezed it once, then set to work. The warm pressure of Dean’s palm and fingers helped steady his hand as he wrote the date and circumstances of the witch’s curse.

Poking through the remains of the hex bag with a coffee stirrer, Sam wrote and reported aloud what he could identify or at least describe. Wolfsbane, hemlock, rue, something spiky he couldn’t name. After figuring out what he could (and putting aside a couple of plants to look at later), he frowned.

“Does any of this sound familiar to you?” he asked Dean, who was still gazing vacantly into the distance, the black smudges around his eyes darker than they had been back at the school.

“I fucking hate witches,” Dean said, then jerked a little, turning his head toward Sam. “I mean—”

So Dean remembered Becca. “I know,” Sam interrupted. He kept his voice level and his hands still. “They look h-human. But anyone who chooses to corrupt their humanity with the occult has forfeited the r-right to be considered human.”

“Sam—”

“I need to get some supplies out of the trunk, okay? I’ll be right back. I don’t recognize this particular curse, but I can try some standard anti-witchcraft remedies. I’ll be right back,” Sam repeated, and squeezed Dean’s hand before getting up. At least he didn’t have to try to smile.

The basic difference between Becca and the freak they were hunting now was that she couldn’t hurt anyone again. Sam wished he could forget her, could stop remembering her, because it never helped anything. It certainly wouldn’t help now. Dean had to know that Sam understood what a witch was, _especially_ now, and that Sam wouldn’t flinch from doing what had to be done to stop the bastard who had stolen Dean’s sight. So what if there had been a time ( _no, no, don’t think of it_ ) when the only comfort he’d known was a thin arm holding him tight, one hand over his eyes, _shh shh_ in his ear?

None of that changed what they were hunting _now_ , and Sam would not think about her.

When he returned, Dean was on his feet, circling the middle of the room with his fingers extended to catch the furniture. Sam let him roam while he warmed holy water with a high concentration of rock salt over a small burner and disinfected one of the washcloths.

Once ready, he called to Dean, “I think this may be easiest if you sit and tilt your head back or lie down.”

Dean felt for a chair and lowered himself into it, one knee bouncing as he drummed his fingers on the armrests. “Whatcha got for me? Better not taste like that gross cough syrup.”

“No, it’s a basic poultice. Just holy water and rock salt. Sometimes if you apply it to an affected area, it draws out the curse.” Sam touched the cloth to Dean’s arm first to prepare him for the temperature and moisture, but Dean’s shoulders still flinched as Sam draped the cloth over his eyes. “Sorry—is it too hot?”

“Nah, it’s just like my last time at a day spa. You got any cucumber slices?” But Dean’s knuckles were white, gripping the armrests. Sam touched them lightly, stroking back and forth with his thumb until Dean let go to take Sam’s hand instead.

After ten minutes, Sam lifted the poultice off and went to get a fresh cloth, this one dipped in cold holy water (from a flask hastily pushed into the mini-fridge), to wipe Dean’s eyelids as carefully as he could.  He tried to ignore the growing ache in his chest. Dean should not be the one so helpless, left to no one’s care but Sam’s.

“Okay,” Sam said at last. “Open your eyes slowly.”

Dean blinked them open, but his eyes were still blank green, focused on nothing. His mouth twisted, and he struck the armrests with his palms. “Should’ve worked by now, right?”

Sam laid a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Yeah, but there’s other ones to try.”

Blowing wolfsbane over Dean’s eyes, drawing the sigil against the evil eye over Dean’s forehead, the back of his neck, inside both his palms, wrapping a blessed set of beads around his eyes and saying a few words to match the blessing tradition—nothing made any change. Sam told himself that perhaps this would at least prevent any spread of the curse. But as far as reversing the vision loss, their only real hope was to catch the witch who had cast it.

They’d come to Minden, Louisiana, after hearing one of those “weird news of the day” specials that entertain civilians without setting off ASC alarm bells. This kind of investigation was usually worth checking out but went unnoticed by ASC hunters.

A high school science teacher (plain, middle-aged, serious, and seriously upset in the interviews) had woken up to find that every plant in her greenhouse had not only been relocated to inside her house, but had also quadrupled in number. Flowers and ferns overran her carpets, and vines twined up her lamps and banisters. She’d called the police, suspecting one of her students had broken in as a prank. The police, however, had been unable to find any signs of illegal entry and hadn’t been sure how even a group of pranksters could have moved all the flora inside without the homeowner hearing so much as a whisper.

To Sam and Dean, those details spelled out “mischievous spirit of one type or another,” so they turned the Impala down I-55 and headed toward Louisiana.

They’d found a few more odd things going down in Minden once they arrived, most of them focused around the high school. Nothing as suspicious as nocturnally migrating plants, but enough to connect a few dots, even if those dots didn’t yield a clear image yet. The custodian admitted that classroom doors kept getting stuck shut, no matter how much they were oiled and examined, and that sometimes even the master key wouldn’t work. He also complained that the new gymnasium hovered at arctic temperatures, despite it being summer in the South and that technicians had completely dismantled the air-conditioning unit.

Dean figured that whatever type of spirit or mojo going on didn’t have much juice, but since the Winchesters were in the area, they ought to put a stop to it. They’d gone to the high school that night intending to scan the place for EMF, but instead they’d run into the trespasser with a hex bag in hand.

“We’re going to have to do a lot more interviewing,” Dean said. “Research. It was sloppy of us—me—to get surprised like that, and no way are we gonna let it happen again.” He glanced at Sam, but it didn’t quite work, his eyes passing over the general area where he thought Sam should be and focusing past his shoulder. “He looked human to me, when I could still see him, which means definitely a witch and not just something humanoid. That always makes it hard. Witches can be tricky, they’re…well, you know a lot of this, Sam.”

Sam agreed, and they brainstormed the next course of action, whom to interview and where to gather evidence. What neither of them pointed out was how much harder it would be, now that they had only one working set of eyes between them.

Sam knew he could push back the usual worries and self-doubts he had while navigating the real world, enough to get the information they needed without alerting suspicion. He wouldn’t let his own weaknesses get in the way when Dean was depending on him. Sam had promised he would find the witch and restore Dean’s sight, and he knew he could do that. He knew how weak freaks were, how they tripped up, and how they broke.

But there were still countless ways his ignorance and inexperience could trip _him_ up, leave him vulnerable to those same mistakes freaks were so likely to make, or at least slow him down at this, the worst possible time—when Dean needed him. Sam knew he could do it, knew he could make it work, but he also knew that they needed to use every possible resource and assistance to get it done _fast_ and right.

“I think we should call Bobby,” he said.

Dean gave a short nod but stayed quiet, restlessly fingering the amulet hanging from his neck . That motion, coupled with the silence, worried Sam more than he wanted to admit. He reached for Dean’s free hand, interlocking their fingers as he dialed Bobby’s number, then turned the speaker on and set the phone on the table.

To Sam’s relief, Bobby picked up, though he sounded groggy and irritated. “Something tells me you ain’t got good news.”

Sam filled him in on the Louisiana case and finished with the school, the attack, the escape. “We think it’s a witch.”

“Yeah? That how Dean lost his voice?” Bobby was trying to joke, but Sam felt his stomach drop, couldn’t quite get out a response.

“Funny,” Dean snapped. “No, I can talk just fine. It’s my eyes that got whammied.”

“Ahh.” Bobby took that in. “So—you stuck watching some witch’s personal horror slideshow, or everything gone black?”

“The second one.”

“Shit,” Bobby said.

“Yeah.” Dean slumped back, his fingers tapping a restless pattern on his knee.

“I already tried the standard anti-witchcraft remedies.” Sam listed them off for Bobby. “And I collected the remains of the hex bag—I think I’ve identified about sixty percent of the ingredients.” Picking up his list, he read them aloud.

”That’s good work. How you holding up, Sam?”

“Fine,” Sam said, and felt himself flush. He knew that not long ago he would have been basically helpless now, unable to do what had to be done to catch the witch, but he’d improved. He wished Bobby could trust him to be reliable. “I’m fine, it didn’t get me at all.”

Bobby sighed. “Can’t make it down to your area of Louisiana in less than a couple days, not at my age. You boys want me to book a flight?”

Sam glanced over to Dean, but Dean continued to stare just sideways of anything, eyes blank. Sam looked away fast, heartbeat racing again from the unpleasant shock that they couldn’t read each other’s faces and decide their next step without words. “Um,” Sam said, and swallowed. If Dean felt strongly one way or another, he wasn’t jumping in. Whether to ask for an experienced hunter’s help in curing Dean, or to trust himself to do it alone, was up to Sam.

He took a deep breath. “Give me forty-eight hours. If I haven’t found the witch and gotten Dean’s sight back by then, then yes, please, we’d appreciate the help.”

“I’ll pack a bag just in case.”

“We almost caught the witch tonight,” Sam continued. “With a few more interviews, I think we can identify the common factors and ID the witch.”

“Yeah, but you gotta plan on taking this witch one-on-one, Sam. I’m guessing Dean’s not gonna be much help when he’s playing blind man’s bluff. And this’ll get much worse for you if they hit you with the same curse—or something worse, hell. In my experience, witches’ bag of tricks don’t stop with blindness.”

“I know. It would be better not to risk a second attack.” Sam focused hard on the phone, not looking at Dean, even though Dean couldn’t see him. “How foolproof would a headshot be to undo the curse?”

Dean’s fidgeting stopped, his head turning toward Sam.

It seemed that even Bobby had caught the quiet. “Well,” he said slowly, “it depends on the curse. But, Sam, that’s—I dunno if you—it’s a hell of a thing, blowing someone away. I wouldn’t do it except as a last resort.”

“It would be different if I’d suggested killing a person,” Sam said, his voice measured. “Witches forfeit the right to be considered human.”

“But they _look_ human, and that’s what counts with your noggin. Look, let me do some research on these ingredients, see what I can find. You be careful, don’t tip the witch off, and don’t let Dean wander into the street. He won’t look pretty run over by a clown car or something.”

“Bite me,” Dean said, just as Sam said, “I won’t.”

~

Blindness sucked hairy ass like nothing Dean had experienced before.  

He’d been in some tight corners before, but excepting those times when he’d been shot, concussed, or unconscious, he’d throw himself back into any of those corners if he could just fucking _see_. When tied up, he could count on a way to work the ropes loose, pick the cuffs, or find a sharp object and free himself. No matter the plot, the plan, or the restraint, there was always a weak spot, and Dean took it as a personal challenge to find and exploit that spot.

Now, there was no blindfold to rip away. He could wait, but there was _nothing_ he could do to give him even a moment’s glimpse of what was going on around him.

It was suffocating in a way no gag had ever been.

And yeah, Dean hated being reduced to a big _baby,_ weak and helpless, someone Sam had to worry about. Sam was beside him, talking to him, doing things, being his ruthlessly productive self, but Dean still heard the undercurrent of anxiety in his voice, no matter how Sam tried to hide it. Like Sam didn’t have _enough_ to deal with on a daily basis.

Dean was trying to keep his cool, trying to show Sam that though the situation sucked, Dean wasn’t going to fuck them up more than they were already, even though the handicap made him restless and angry and ready to gut anything that made a funny noise. Already the idea of Sam alone, facing off against some wild-eyed witch with nothing to lose, made his skin crawl.

Even getting ready for bed was way more difficult than it should have been. Sam was right beside him, handing him pajamas and taking away the shirt and pants he shucked. In the bathroom, Sam placed his toothbrush in one hand and the toothpaste in his other, but Dean had no way to gauge when he had enough or too much toothpaste on the bristles, or when the fluoride shit was spilling out over his fingers until he felt it there and shook it off before he thought of who would have to clean it up. Sam was right there watching him fumble and fuck up with slimy tooth cleaner against the calluses of his hands.

“I...I could—”

Dean handed them over before Sam even finished the thought. When he returned the brush, Dean stuck it in his mouth, thinking furiously that he better not fucking choke himself. Spitting into the sink and rinsing his mouth sucked too, though there at least he could brace one hand on the faucet, gauge the distance, and have a better chance of not getting spit and Colgate all over the fucking floor.

He thought bedtime would be easier. That when he heard Sam switching off the lights, for the first time that night Dean would have a familiar darkness, the weight of Sam’s arms over his shoulders, the sound of his quiet breathing evening out into sleep.

The breathing, that was good. But the darkness was _wrong_. No hotel room was completely dark, except for that time in Butte, Montana, when the power went out all across town in a semi-supernatural downpour, and there hadn’t been a single car, streetlight, functioning alarm clock, or smoke alarm in a twelve-block radius of the hotel where John had left him. Other than that sort of cause, no blackout curtain could completely cut the glare from the parking lot, and _some_ light would always trickle under the door.  

The absence of all that locked his jaw, set his heart thudding, pulled his body into one tight line, his fingers digging into the sheets. He tried to relax, tried to rest in Sam’s arms, but he had this feeling that he had to move, had to _run_ or the darkness would hold onto him forever. He twisted and turned, pounding his pillow into a better shape like that was the reason he couldn’t relax, when he couldn’t even say what he really wanted to punch.

“Dean?” Sam asked.

“It’s fine, Sammy, go to sleep.” Dean threw himself down again. He wasn’t helpless. He had his sheathed knife under his pillow, both out of habit and knowledge that knives were his best defense right now. But what could he actually do if someone knocked down the door? How could he be sure he was stabbing an attacker and not Sam? A hell of a lot of things that went bump in the night would love to take them down, not to mention their personal, very human nightmare that could step over salt lines like they were nothing. He’d sworn up and down to protect Sam from the ASC, and from his own father, and they could all be line dancing across the street from him in fucking tutus right now and he’d never know.

_Fuck_. Dean sat up, putting his back to the headboard, fighting for deep, even breaths, as though if he could just get enough air and _focus_ , he could force himself to see again. He needed to _see_ , what good was a fucking hunter who couldn’t see?

“Dean?” The mattress dipped as Sam sat up too. “Is something happening? More side effects from the curse?”

“No, it’s just—” Dean ground his palms into his eyes and then dragged his hands through his hair, gripping tight. Then he broke, twisting away from Sam to give in to the urge he’d felt since he’d realized the truth in that high school bathroom. He slammed his knuckles to the wall once, twice.

“Dean!” Sam scrambled to his side, one hand landing on his shoulder, the other on his arm. “Hey, hey, talk to me, Dean, please.”

“I can’t _see_.” Dean dropped his head, his breath ragged, and used his palm for the next, less forceful blows between each word. “I can’t _see_ , and I can’t—fucking—handle this. It’s like it’s, it’s fucking claustrophobic, Sam.”

“I know.” Sam squeezed his shoulder in sympathy. “I always hated it.”

That broke through the frustration and self-pity swamping him. He turned his head toward Sam. “What?”

Sam caught his breath. “It’s—not like this, not with magic. Don’t worry, Dean, please. I just hate that it happened to you, it should have been me—because,” he said quickly, before Dean could respond to _that_ statement, “at least I—have some experience. I might have—found it easier to deal with. But Dean, please, _please_ —I know it’s hard to believe me, I haven’t had much experience in the real world and sometimes I still can’t do things—but I _will_ fix this. I will get your sight back, I swear. Please trust me.” Sam sounded almost near tears, both Dean’s hands in his now, holding them tight.

It was enough to pull Dean’s attention from himself, to really _listen_ to what Sam was saying. “I do,” he said, quieter. “I do trust you, Sam. ‘Course I do, no one knows better than me what a badass you are. I’m not _that_ blind, y’know.”

Sam sighed, and Dean felt Sam’s head come to rest on his shoulder, as Sam let go of one hand to rest it on Dean’s back. “We’re going to be okay. We’re okay.”

Dean tried for something like a laugh, though it sounded weak. “Dude, you stole my line.”

“Never said I couldn’t use it,” Sam said. Dean felt the brush of lips on his cheek. “Maybe I can—turn the radio on? Just as a distraction.”

“Sure,” Dean said, and forced himself back down. The bed shifted as Sam leaned away from him. He heard a staccato crackle, different stations given a few seconds each, until Sam settled on one —not classical, but the familiar riffs of “Moonlight Mile.”

Sam eased back down next to him, his hand folding over Dean’s. “Okay?”

Dean rubbed his thumb over Sam’s knuckles, closing his eyes so he wouldn’t focus on what he couldn’t see. “Yeah, Sammy. Just fine.”

~*~

For a second, waking up the next morning, he didn’t remember. He rose out of sleep slowly, blinked his eyes open—then blinked harder, because the warmth on his face meant the sun shone, but everything for him was still pitch-black.

Then panic hit, and he sat up sharply, bracing himself on the headboard, his other hand scrabbling for his knife. Hands landed on his arm, and Dean shifted to draw the knife and slash at the intruder—until Sam said, quiet and steady, “Dean.”

He remembered, then, and stopped. He stopped everything, even breathing, for a long moment to get himself under control. Then he forced a smile in the direction of Sam’s voice. “Hey, Sammy. What’s for breakfast?”

Sam squeezed his arm and let go, the mattress shifting as he moved. “I thought I’d run to the donut shop at the corner. Do you want to watch a morning show? I can give you the remote.”

“Yeah, sure.” Dean held out his hand. “Get me some of those chocolate donut holes. Where’d you stash my duffel? Might as well get dressed while you’re gone.”

Even with the idle chatter of _Good Morning America_ , it was way too quiet after Sam left. Dean tried not to count the minutes as he wiggled into his jeans and shirt (much more careful about the buttons and zipper than usual), but the show hadn’t ended before he heard Sam’s quick coded knock, followed by the door opening and his bright, “I’m back.”

Dean sat up from where he’d been stretched, trying for lazy indifference. Without his eyes, he really wasn’t sure it had worked. “You got coffee?”

“‘Course.”

Dean joined Sam at the table (he remembered where that was, at least), and Sam pushed a bag and coffee cup into his hands. This wasn’t too bad, Dean decided, as long as he didn’t forget where his cup was. He should use this clusterfuck to hone his ninja skills, like Batman. Maybe the attempt at positive thinking would work, as long as he didn’t think about Sam facing off alone against a witch.

Sam was reviewing their research aloud as they ate. Dean could imagine him ticking off each of the known victims on his fingers: Carrie Allemand, the science teacher, and Amelia Saint-Rome, the principal whose school seemed to be the epicenter of the trouble.

“We aren’t going to get anywhere digging in public archives, since it seems like a fairly new witch problem. We should ask the principal about problem students or employees who left disgruntled.”

“So, back to the principal’s house.” Dean dusted sugar glaze off his fingers. “Ready when you are. Have I got sugar all over me?” He gestured toward his face.

Dean heard Sam’s hesitation in the silence, before his cautious query. “You want to...come along?”

Dean shrugged, trying to keep it more matter-of-fact than defensive. Being blind was screwing with his reactions, Jesus. “I know I’m not gonna be much use in a gunfight, or identifying victims, but I can at least keep an ear on your back.”

“You could,” Sam said slowly. It did not sound like agreement. “But Dean, you might be...safer here. Fewer things can go wrong, and I could—it would be easier, I think, for us to focus just on finding out what we need to catch the witch and get your sight back.” After a pause, Sam said in a rush, “I know I can talk to her and follow up on anything she mentions. I can interview whoever I need to, Dean. I can do this.”

“‘Course you can,” Dean said automatically. “I just thought, I mean. Sure, whatever rocks your boat, Sammy.”

Sam drew in a sharp breath, and Dean felt Sam’s fingertips on his hand. “I don’t want to leave you, if you’re not comfortable—if you’d rather go with me.”

“Nah, you got a point.” Dean turned his hand to squeeze Sam’s once, then let go. “You can’t be worrying about me tripping over shit. I’ll slow you down. Just, uh—we better come up with a good cover story for the civvies. The ladies could never resist me, but I had a hell of a time getting info out of anyone else when I was seventeen.”

“I could say my parents are planning to move here, but they’d heard about some troublemakers at her school,” Sam suggested. “Though it might be weird if I’m there by myself.”

“She might want to talk to your parents instead, yeah. Hey! You could have her call me—I can totally be a dad.” He deepened his voice to prove it.

Sam huffed out a laugh. “If you think that will work, okay. You...I’d like you to keep your phone handy, just in case, anyway.”

Sam dawdled another fifteen minutes, going over the plan, how to dial the phone for emergencies, the available TV channels, and weapon locations, until Dean finally waved for him to go, go already.

But after the door closed behind Sam, Dean became aware of the silence in a way he had never really been before.

Every move he made—exhaling, drumming his fingers on the table, knocking his boot against the table leg—was amplified. He managed to turn the TV on, channel surf, adjust the volume. But he could still hear the noise outside—voices shouting, car doors slamming, footsteps moving quick and heavy and closer.

Dean muted the TV, unconsciously holding his breath until the footsteps passed the door and faded away. Only then did he release his knife hilt.

It didn’t get much easier after that. The minutes ticked by—fifteen minutes, half an hour, Dean couldn’t tell because he couldn’t even look at a fucking watch. He switched off the TV in favor of the clock radio, because at least the DJs announced the time every so often.

Sam was fine. No news was good news. Sam was in his super-focused badass mode, when _nothing_ cowed him, when he could charm the pants off anyone, and he didn’t need Dean’s help. He’d find out everything there was to know, and then he would come back. Probably with food, because Sam was thoughtful like that, and Dean may have made an impression, early on, when he insisted on Sam getting three meals a day.

Dean wasn’t going to think about anyone giving his kid a hard time, hassling him about why a teenager was driving a sweet old ‘67 Impala. Dean had gotten shit himself once, and he’d made sure the assholes left with a few bruises to remember him by. Sam could handle himself, no question about that, but there was always shit to handle. Dean was _not_ going to think about his father showing up now, though that would be just perfect Winchester luck.

And if it was one of _those_ assholes...Sam might shut down. He might be unable to run. But they probably wouldn’t recognize him, he had come so far in almost a year, with meat on his bones and clothes that fit him. And even if he froze at first—he’d get his breath back, find a chance to run, and get back to Dean. Of course he would, that’s how they’d planned it.

That was the _only_ way it could go down, when Dean couldn’t rescue him himself.

It was hard to avoid the list of things he shouldn’t think about when he had nothing to distract himself but the radio. Ads for Toyotas and mattresses didn’t really do the trick. He got up, pacing the room with one hand on the wall, counting steps from the door to the bathroom. He found the bag with their first aid kit and opened it up, trying to identify items by touch, but he couldn’t distinguish packets of Advil from fucking wet wipes. Then he had to add stitching-up-Sammy-while-blind to the list of things he wasn’t going to think about. Along with how the hell he could help Sam in a hospital, again, while not being able to see.

The DJ announced it was half past noon. Dean was not going to call Sam. Sam was busy, and that was all it fucking was.

When a quick knock sounded on the door, Dean shot off the bed to his feet, before he realized it had been their code. Then the door swung open, and Sam called, “Hey, Dean.”

Dean sat back down on the bed, but he couldn’t force himself to look any more relaxed. Sam was back, but Dean couldn’t _see_ him, couldn’t check how he moved or even if he had a huge-ass bandage around his head, or if some potato-faced creature had just stolen Sam’s voice and memories and was about to rip Dean’s throat out. Paranoid? Sure, but he couldn’t rule out the possibility, because _nothing_ was impossible when it came to Winchester luck.

“Hey,” Sam said again, closer yet quieter, and goddammit, Dean actually jumped when Sam touched his hand. Then the mattress dipped, and Sam tightened his grip. “You okay?”

Dean tried for an easy laugh. Not even he could pretend it worked. Without thinking, he reached for Sam’s face. His fingers found Sam’s forehead and the stray flop of hair that nearly reached his eyes. He traced the curve of Sam’s cheek down to his chin. “You okay?” he asked, even though he hadn’t yet answered the same question.

“Yeah.” Sam didn’t move away, didn’t change his grip on Dean’s hand. “Nothing exciting happened, but I found out some things. I talked to Mrs. Saint-Rome, and she was really helpful. I just mentioned that I’d heard about a troublemaker, and she told me that particular student had graduated and wouldn’t be welcome back on campus.”

“Did she give you a name?” Dean left his hand on Sam’s jaw. He would move it soon. Just not yet. It was good to feel it move as Sam talked.

“No, she wouldn’t. I—I didn’t know how to find out without her wondering.” Sam’s voice was low, almost ashamed, like he was confessing a failure.

Dean dropped his hand to squeeze Sam’s shoulder. “Hey, you did awesome. That’s a great start.”

“I did ask if there was anyone else who might cause trouble, or if it was just that one. She was sure no one else would. I went again to Ms. Allemand’s house, to see if she’d had trouble with a student who graduated, but she wasn’t home. So I picked up Subway and came back.”

“Awesome,” Dean said, and let go of Sam’s shoulder. “Knew you could handle that and bring me back grub too.”

Sam gripped his fingers tight, then let go and stood back up. “Food’s on the table.”

The sandwich was good and easy to chow down, as long as he peeled the paper wrapper off first.  “So, what’s the plan for the afternoon?”

“I was thinking I’d try Ms. Allemand’s house again and look around the school to see if I can catch anyone to talk to,” Sam said.  “The witch probably won’t try anything in the daytime. I thought you could ride in the Impala, if you want.”

Dean lifted his head in surprise. “Yeah?”

“What I figured is,” Sam said cautiously, “it’ll help us move faster if I can bounce ideas off you, get your help on things I’m not sure about, and decide the next move. And you should be okay as long as you’re in the Impala.”

“Oh, yeah. Works for me. There’s nothing good on TV, anyway.” Dean could pretend, to himself at least, that Sam hadn’t read the naked relief on his face.

When Sam led him outside by the arm, it was sensory overload all over again: traffic whizzing down the nearby road, hot sun beating down, the fry-basket smell of the nearby diner. Dean lifted his face, trying to tell the direction of the sun, and then Sam nudged his fingers to the door handle before unlocking the car. Getting in still came naturally enough, and Dean ran an appreciative hand over the inside of the shotgun door and the dash.

“Guess I gotta trust you didn’t take her out for some wacko hippie paint job, huh? I’m not gonna be surprised by some dragons or flower decals all over my baby when you get my eyes back, am I?”

Sam’s laugh was audible even over the engine’s rumble as he started the car, and Dean settled back into the seat, smiling easier than he had all day.

When they returned to Ms. Allemand’s house, Sam reported a green Honda now parked in the driveway. He went to knock again while Dean tried to play it cool, listening to the radio with the window rolled partially down, trying not to think about those news reports about dogs and helpless babies trapped in cars in the midday heat. Summer in the South was no joke.

Sam returned with a name: Justin Malveaux.

“It sounds pretty likely,” Sam said, as they pulled away from the block. “That was the first name she mentioned, and she didn’t hesitate. Apparently he had a lot of trouble in her class, accused her of a personal agenda against him. She doesn’t know how anyone could have moved her plants, but she wouldn’t put petty revenge past him. She also told me to talk to her niece, Isobel, who works at Sonic. She was in the same year as him, they had some interactions.”

“Sounds like a solid lead. She didn’t mind talking to you?”

“No.” Sam sounded surprised by it. “Well, when we met her before, I know she was defensive about her story, since people have basically called her crazy since the report. But I just told her I’d heard there’d been a student at the school with some grudges, and I hoped she wasn’t in danger—and she opened right up.”

“Looks like you’ve got some charm with the ladies after all.” Dean smirked.

Sam huffed and didn’t respond. “Let’s find that Sonic.”

It wasn’t too hard to find, in a town the size of Minden. When a girl showed up with their drinks, Sam asked if Isobel was working. The girl gave an affirmative and promised to find her and send her out as soon as she had a minute. Footsteps returned before long.

“Hey,” said a different girl’s voice, young and friendly. Once, Dean would’ve flirted like hell with the owner of that voice. “Nice car.”

“Thanks,” Dean called, tipping his head toward her automatically. He hadn’t taken his sunglasses off since he’d left the motel, so it wasn’t like she’d spot anything weird.

“Dean lets me drive it sometimes,” Sam said brightly. “It’s Isobel, right? I’m Sam. We were just at your aunt Carrie’s house. We’d heard about that weird plant incident, and since our parents are thinking of moving here, we wanted to know if that kind of thing happens a lot.”

“Please, if it did, that wouldn’t have made the national news. It’s not like we have an ASC outpost here.”

Sam forced a laugh.  “Yeah, th-that’s good. So, your aunt mentioned you might’ve known this kid in your class—Justin?”

“Oh, him.” Her voice changed abruptly, going dark and angry. “I don’t even want to talk about that creep.”

“What do you mean?” Sam added quickly, “Though I understand if you don’t—”

“He’s just—such a _loser_ , and the scary kind that thinks the world owes him, you know? I couldn’t get him to leave me alone for a while.”

“Did he—what did he…”

“A date,” she said, sounding pissed. “Just wanted me to ‘give him a chance,’ all that shit. Only backed off when my brother got in his face. Though maybe I shouldn’t have asked him to.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Uh…you gotta ask him that. Just, bad stuff’s been happening to people who piss Justin off.”

“Did something happen to your brother?” Sam asked, shading his voice with just the right amount of concern.

“Maybe. I can’t talk about it. He’s all freaked out, though, and won’t go see a doctor.” Isobel sounded indecisive and anxious, a tone Dean knew well when a witness was on the verge of spilling everything. “I, I just—have you talked to Antoine Gallot, who runs the hardware store? Justin worked there a little while. Antoine might be able to tell you something, too.”

“What do you think he’d tell me?” Sam asked, nice and gentle. Dean gave him five stars for interviewing skills.

Isobel was silent for a long minute. When she spoke, her voice came closer, dropped to a whisper. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

“No,” Sam agreed immediately. “We don’t want that, either.”

“And I don’t know if—” She took a shuddering breath. “It’s a big fucking thing, I know that. I don’t want—I don’t want trouble. I know what they do to—to people who play around in that shit.”

Sam was silent. Dean said, “We won’t call them, I promise.”

“I don’t want to be the one who did that to him,” Isobel continued at a nervous speed, “even if...I saw him with this book, once. In his backpack, I mean.”

“What kind of book?” Sam asked.

“The kind no one’s allowed to have. Like, it looked...wrong. _Alive_. I was completely whacked out.”

“Did he know you saw it?”

“No, I—but I wonder if he _wanted_ me to see it. Like maybe he thought it would _impress_ me or something.” Her voice caught, equal parts anger and tears. “He scares the shit out of me.”

“Okay,” Sam said. “Don’t worry. We’re going to figure this out.”

“Why?” Isobel sounded suspicious again. “Why would you do anything? What’ve you got to do with it?”

“He, uh—” Sam hesitated. “He may have hurt someone we know, too.”

“Be careful. And look, I didn’t make any accusations, okay? I won’t testify to the ASC about anything.”

“We’re not getting them involved,” Dean repeated. “You’re smart to steer clear of that kid. Your brother, uh—there’s nothing wrong with his eyes, is there?”

“What?” Isobel was startled. “No, it’s, uh—a shrinkage issue. _Down there_.” Dean couldn’t see her gesture, but there was a hint of amusement in her voice. Cold. “Like guys get taking those sketcho steroids, you know? So it could be nothing. But talk to Mr. Gallot, see what he has to say.”

“Thank you, Isobel,” Sam said.

As Sam backed out of the parking space, Dean said, “Well, I guess there are worse things than being blind, after all.”

Sam didn’t answer, and Dean wanted to say, _C’mon, that was a little bit funny_. He wanted Sam to laugh, even that little huff that he gave at Dean’s lousy jokes. But without being able to catch the crinkle of his eyes or the twitch at the corner of his mouth, Dean didn’t have the smallest clue how Sam felt, despite being two feet away from him.

All Sam said was, “I think we passed the hardware store earlier, back toward the motel.” His voice sounded far more distant than it actually could be.

Sam spent half an hour inside the hardware store, returning with a lengthy report of accidents and bad luck that had plagued the store since Justin quit, storming out one day. He also had a lead on possible locations, including a barn outside town, where Justin had asked Gallot to drop him off one time.

“Sounds like he’s the one.” Sam said, tone flat as a dead lake.

More than he wanted to be able to aim his gun, check for threats, or dig under the Impala’s hood, Dean wanted to see Sam’s face.

~*~

Driving the Impala still didn’t feel natural to Sam; still more unnatural was Dean’s total dependence on him. It made his skin itch, made everything feel _wrong_ , unbalanced. Dean had always been able to take care of himself. Sam had known that as a core truth since the first day they’d met, when ten-year-old Dean had swaggered alone into the monster pen.

In the last year, he’d seen Dean more vulnerable than he’d ever dreamed Dean could be. Sam had once assumed that Dean had a worldly expertise that meant he wasn’t really in danger when he threw himself into situations, whether they be hunts or volatile interviews or bottles of alcohol. Sam had been forced to reconsider that theory the first time he’d hauled Dean out of a bar fight.

Drunken nights didn’t happen so often anymore. Maybe that had made Sam out of practice dealing with a Dean who relied on him completely. But Sam was going to use everything in his arsenal to fix it—his way.

By the time they pulled into the motel lot, he had a plan, though he waited until Dean was safely in the room before voicing it. “We have his address, and we know enough about him to gauge his threat level with w-witchcraft. I don’t think it’s very high, more like a novice. So I don’t see any point in waiting.”

Some guilty part of Sam thought that it was easier to talk to Dean this way, not to get flustered by his gaze on him. When Dean looked up sharply, his eyes were blank and unfocused as they had been all day. “Yeah? What are you suggesting?”

“I want to go after him,” Sam said flatly. “I want to corner him and give him no choice but to reverse the curse on you. I don’t see a better solution.”

Dean’s brow creased, his face turned to some point just to the right of Sam. “You want to go alone? I don’t think so.”

Sam tensed. “Dean, I’m used to dealing with monsters on my own.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to.”

“Dean—” Sam bit back the rest, because there was no good way to say _you’ll get in the way_. That was not something they said to each other. By the way his shoulders stiffened, Sam could see that Dean had heard it anyway.

“Look,” Dean said, his voice steely like when they were facing down a freak and running low on rounds. “I’m not waiting here again. Not while you go toe-to-toe with some teen wannabe warlock hopped up on knockoff mojo. I’m not gonna sit here and guess how long it’s been since you left, how long before I should call Bobby, wait for _him_ to show. How long before I lose my shit wondering what happened to you, not sure if you’ve ended up answering questions in some lock-up, or gutted for ingredients by that sick fuck. And either way, I’m _trapped_ here because I move more than five feet outside this door and I’m going to fall on my fucking face. I’m not doing it!”

Sam would have identified that rise in anyone else’s voice as incipient hysteria. With Dean, he was transfixed by how he could look Sam in the eye even when he couldn’t see a fucking thing. “You may need to be there,” he said at last. “If he needs you there to undo the spell.”

Dean’s shoulders relaxed an inch. “Yeah, exactly. I’m not saying you have to keep me by your side when you have your showdown, but I should be in range to hear what goes down, with a radio and cell on me, in case it goes south. It’s take me with, or we call Bobby and wait until he gets here.”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t want to risk Malveaux taking off. I’ll take you to the site and scope out the best place for you. But until I disable him and give you the all-clear, you _have to_ stay where I put you, okay?”

Dean’s mouth twisted in a thin imitation of his usual smile. “Yeah, Sammy. Crystal. So, we hit him first thing tomorrow, when he’s not expecting us.”

Sam hesitated. “I don’t want you to have to spend another night like this.”

Dean sighed, gesturing in matter-of-fact agreement. “Trust me, Sammy, I feel you. But we have to do this right and take it slow. This is not a situation we can afford to fuck up. I mean, if we both end up blind, we’re gonna have a hell of a time finding someplace safe to wait while Bobby makes it down to save our asses.”

“Yeah.” Sam paused, took another breath, and took Dean’s hand. “Okay. So, what do you want for dinner?”

~*~

Later that night, curled together in bed and staring into the darkness that was his world, Dean said, “What do blind people do all day?”

Sam didn’t answer for a long moment, and Dean wondered if Sam had slipped into the sleep that so thoroughly evaded him. Then Sam sighed and shifted in his arms, pulling away slightly.

“I’d have to do research. There’s a lot I don’t know. But I’ve heard of a type of trained dog—seeing eye dogs. We could get one of those.”

“Thought you didn’t like dogs.”

“I’m sure I can get used to one trained to help.”

Dean huffed. “Probably wouldn’t be much good on a hunt.”

Sam didn’t answer, and Dean felt like kicking himself. Of course they wouldn’t be hunting if he stayed blind. “Guess we’d move our stuff from Colorado to South Dakota or Minnesota, what do you think? Whatever one’s got a better school for you.”

Sam made an indeterminate noise. “We’d figure it out.” Dean felt Sam’s fingertips on the back of his hand, and he turned his hand over to let Sam grasp it more firmly.

Dean went on, unable to get his mouth to shut up. “I always figured that if I couldn’t hunt anymore, I’d work in a garage, but fuck, Sammy. If you tell me I’m never gonna be able to drive again, not anywhere—”

“I’m not telling you that,” Sam said quietly. “I’m going to get your sight back, Dean.”

Dean heaved out a breath, forcing his other hand to unclench. “Yeah, Sammy. I know you will.”

They fell silent, and Dean thought that maybe Sam had really fallen asleep. He let himself move in, brush his lips over Sam’s cheek. He didn’t need light for that, at least. “I miss your face,” he told Sam, in a whisper more breath than voice.

Sam took Dean’s hand and brought it to his own cheek, letting Dean’s thumb trace his nose, his lips. “I’m right here.”

Finally, Dean slept.

~*~

The barn was decrepit, the back half of the roof collapsed. Sam drove slowly around the structure without seeing any other vehicles or signs of life, then parked in the back.

“Stay here, I’m going to check it out.”

“Shucks, and here I was going to get us malts,” Dean said with heavy sarcasm. He’d been tenser, quieter this morning, but everything he said had a bite.

Sam didn’t respond, just slipped out of the Impala and over to the barn door, walking silent as a vamp. He found a simple snare just inside the door, and a tripwire where a clutter of rotting boards and hay from the fallen ceiling made the footing more challenging. Neither significantly increased his appreciation of the witch’s skill or cunning. Sam disabled both of the traps and quickly confirmed that the barn was empty, but, judging by the dust-free path to a closet, it had been used recently. The stash of herbs, contraband amulets, and witchcraft ingredients he found in the closet confirmed that they’d found the right barn.

When he returned to the Impala, Dean was fiddling with a sheathed Bowie knife, leg bouncing. He snapped around and stilled at the sound of Sam’s footsteps.

“It’s me,” Sam said, and leaned his forearms where the driver’s window was rolled down. “I think you ought to wait here until I incapacitate him. I don’t like the layout— “

“Tough shit, Sammy, we’ll make it work.” Dean threw open the shotgun door and got out, even if he had to stop there, one hand on the top of the car, to wait for Sam.

Sam gritted his teeth a moment before walking around the Impala, because this? Was a bad plan, a stupid plan, a decidedly _non_ -plan sort of plan, and Dean was too fucking stubborn sometimes. For a second, Sam considered shoving Dean back into the car, leaving him there while he staked out the barn—but Dean wouldn’t stay.

And something in Sam still shrank back at the idea of touching Dean like that, physically forcing him to do anything, especially when he wasn’t drunk on alcohol or under some other influence. Blind and out of patience with his own helplessness did not count, as much as Sam would have liked the excuse right now.

He led Dean to the barn door, conducting one last survey before entering. “It’s about twenty feet wide and twice as long. This front area is cleared, with just a few support poles spaced apart. Open stalls on either side, starting here—ten steps in. I’m walking you to the back of the barn, where there’s an exit door—here.” Sam placed Dean’s hand on it, pushing to show the give. “I’m going to sit you two steps back, against this short wall.” Sam guided him backward and lowered him to sit on a pile of hay. “You’ll hear whatever happens in the front, but if it goes wrong, you can leave and reach the Impala—it’s less than a dozen steps straight from the exit.” _Then what?_ Sam hated that question, because there was no answer. If Sam were incapacitated, Dean’s options were limited or scarily suicidal, and he really didn’t want to think about them. “Dean, are you sure—”

The roar of an engine from the road cut Sam off, making him flinch. His grip tightened on Dean’s arm.

“I’m good,” Dean said. “Go get him.”

Sam squeezed his arm, then hurried down the length of the barn to stand beside the front door. He drew his pistol and held very still, his breaths slow and measured.

A single set of footsteps approached. Then the bolt slid back, the door opened, and a skinny young man with spiky blond hair stepped inside.

Taking one step forward, Sam slammed the pistol against the side of Justin’s head.

Justin toppled forward onto his knees with a sharp cry. While he clutched his head, Sam kicked him the rest of the way to the floor, then stomped hard on Justin’s right wrist.

Justin screamed, and Sam yanked his arms behind his back (distantly registering the crunch of bones in the broken wrist), efficiently lashing them together with the rope he’d taken from the Impala’s trunk. He used a second rope on Justin’s ankles. Then, using the back of Justin’s shirt and his bound arms, he hauled him upright against the nearest post.

Justin was sweating and panting, face contorted in pain. Sam stepped around to face him, aiming the pistol steadily with both hands into Justin’s face.

“You’re Justin Malveaux, the witch of Minden. You’ve been hexing people. Do you deny it?”

Justin stared up at him, terrified. From what Sam had learned, he knew that Justin was a few years older than him, but in this moment he didn’t look it. He looked shocked and snivelly and about thirteen. Sam didn’t care. He felt nothing but cold fury and contempt. He knew better than to trust the face of any freak. It took everything in him not to _pull the fucking trigger_.

Apart from that savage urge and disgust, he felt focused and clear-headed. Despite everything he still did not know about the real world, _this_ he understood. He knew how to handle a freak.

Justin swallowed, his lips parting again, but not as though to speak. Sam moved in and hit Justin across the mouth with the butt of his gun.

Justin’s head jerked back, and he swore through bloody teeth, kicking his feet helplessly against the floor.

“I’m not going to ask you again,” Sam said.

Justin spat blood on the barn floor, glaring hatred at Sam, then said thickly, “Yeah. I hexed them.”  
  
Sam’s lips compressed into a thin line. Nothing more was necessary—except Dean needed his sight back. “You threw a hex bag in the high school, two nights ago. The one with a blindness curse. You’re going to undo it now.”

Through the grimace of pain and anger, Justin’s face registered bewilderment. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie,” Sam said forcefully, shoving the gun closer to Justin’s face. “We saw you there, in the school office. We almost caught you then.”

“That was you?” Justin said, incredulous. “I dunno what the fuck I threw. I hadn’t finished it yet.”

Sam gritted his teeth, but he didn’t think Justin was lying. “You’re going to find a way to undo it to my satisfaction. You’re not leaving here until you do.”

“You broke my fucking wrist!”

“That’s not the worst I can do,” Sam promised, his voice low and vicious with all the ways he meant it. By the way Justin stilled and stared up at Sam, he heard them loud and clear.

“And the worst I can do,” Sam continued, whispering so there wasn’t a chance Dean could hear, “doesn’t come close to what the ASC will do to you when they find you. Because they _will_ find you, Justin Malveaux. Freaks aren’t very smart, and you aren’t smart, even for a freak.”

Sam wouldn’t have thought Justin could pale any more, but he did.

“Witchcraft isn’t like getting bit by a vampire or a werewolf,” Sam said, cold and mechanical. “Those who deal with the occult forfeit their humanity. There’s no mercy for you, Justin. You have two choices now: undo the witchcraft you’ve cast, renounce the occult, and leave this town; or you can die here, and thank me for not turning you over to the ASC.”

Justin took a shuddering breath. “Okay, okay, option A. I’ll undo everything.”

“Including the blindness hex you cast two nights ago,” Sam pressed.

“Yeah, sure. I mean, I’ll do my best.”

“Your _best_ will be a complete reversal,” Sam snapped. “I won’t accept anything less.” He jerked his head toward the closet. “You have what you need in there. I know enough about witchcraft to know if you’re cooking up something else. Now I’m going to untie your hands, but not your feet.”

He did as he said, loosening the ropes around Justin’s wrists, then stepping back quickly to keep his pistol trained on him, out of reach of any sudden lunge. Justin took a minute to cradle and hiss over his mangled wrist, then tried to pull himself to his feet, but his tightly bound ankles stopped him.

“How am I supposed to move?”

“Crawl,” Sam said.

Justin got to work slowly, assembling a large bowl, a battered book stripped of its cover, and a set of makeshift tools, some of them plastic or rusty. He flipped through the book for a few minutes, then looked up at Sam. “You want me to undo the blindness one first, right? It’s gonna be hard without access to the dude I cursed.”

“Well,” Sam said grimly, “you’re in luck.” He stepped back, to the middle of the barn, and called, “Dean, you can come out now.”

After a moment, Dean appeared, walking slowly toward them with one hand on the stalls. Sam’s throat tightened as he realized the trust that showed in him. He moved toward Dean, blocking Justin’s line of sight until he could grab Dean’s arm and pull him behind him.

He made Justin describe the process exactly, step by step, before he let him reach for Dean’s eyes. Dean stood stiff, tense with Sam’s grip on his arm, but he didn’t so much as twitch as Justin swiped his smoky fingers over Dean’s eyelids, chanting in halting, mangled Latin all the while. It put Sam’s teeth on edge, how _bad_ he was at this, how easily he could fuck it all up again, but he didn’t dare interrupt.

Then Justin sat back, and Sam tugged Dean behind him again before leveling the pistol at Justin’s head. “Get down on the floor, on your belly, hands behind your head.”

~

Dean felt a buzzing in his ears, which was definitely weird and probably shouldn’t be happening, since it was his eyes that were supposed to be getting fixed. Then his eyelids were tingling, and he blinked hard, grinding the heels of his palms into them.

When he next opened his eyes and blinked, the world was no longer black. It was muddy brown, with light in the distance, like he was trying to see underwater. Still, it was a hell of an improvement over unchanging pitch-black, and he let out a triumphant hiss as he rubbed his eyes again.

“What’s happening?” Sam’s voice was sharp, on edge. “Dean, talk to me.”

“I think it’s working…” He started to make out shapes, lines and rectangles and thinner lines down the floor. All were tinted different shades of brown, but that probably made sense, seeing that they were in a barn. He turned his head, desperate to see more, and _there_.

“Shit!” A burst of sunlight (which must have been there the entire fucking time) pierced his eyes like a fucking barbed arrow. Swearing in pain and sheer gratitude, Dean squeezed them closed, feeling tears prickle his eyelashes.

“Dean?” Sam’s voice rose, alarmed.

“It’s fine, just—I can see fucking sunlight, Sammy.” Dean felt giddy. Swiping away the water, he tried opening his eyes again, cautiously. The sunlight was fucking bright at first, too bright to see anything else in the barn, but he blinked through it until shapes and colors started coming back into focus. Stalls—he was looking at horse stalls, loose hay strewn over the floor. Farm tools stashed at the far end of the barn, by a door. Sunlight streaming through an open window.

He looked the other way, and the scene slowly came into focus: a teenage punk, almost as skinny as Sam, stretched facedown on the floor with his hands clasped behind his head. Sam pointing a gun steadily at him with both hands, his face committed to murder.

“Sam,” he said. Sam didn’t move. Slowly, Dean stepped toward them, and even more slowly reached for the gun. Sam’s fingers went slack as Dean’s hands closed around it, and Dean was able to pull it away, placing one hand on Sam’s shoulder as he did.

“You got lucky today, punk,” Dean told the witch, trying to keep his voice a growling threat, when he wanted to laugh maniacally and maybe dance-stomp around the barn and just _look_ at everything, lame as that sounded even in his head. He could see, he could fucking _see_ again—but he had to focus. “Just in case you haven’t figured it out, you ain’t a very good witch. We caught you half-blind and a day late, so get this through your dumb skull if you like living as a free man: we’re going to let you live, for now, but after we leave, you’ll burn this barn down, leave town, and live clean. We’ll be watching you, and at the first sign, the first fucking peep of you doing this shit again, we’re going to come down on you like a Rocky Mountain avalanche. You’re going to be so flat you’ll have to use your toes to hold up your nose, you hear me?”

“Yeah,” Justin muttered.

“Good,” Dean said, and bent down to punch his lights out. Then he cut the restraints on the punk’s ankles and walked away. When Sam hesitated, still looking over at the kid with death in his eyes, Dean went back to grab him by the shoulder. They left the barn, walking quickly around to where Sam had parked the Impala in the back.

Sam passed him the keys, just pressing them into Dean’s hands without looking, but Dean caught him before he could move toward the shotgun seat. Sam hadn’t been looking at him, but now his eyes opened wide, startled.

Dean kissed him hard, one hand in Sam’s hair above his neck, the other around Sam’s upper arm. It took Sam a moment to get with the program, but he opened to the kiss, not quite matching Dean’s ferocity.

Regretfully, Dean kept it short, licking his lips when he pulled away. Sam looked gob-smacked, wet lips parted tantalizingly. Dean was tempted to go in for seconds, but common sense (and Justin, likely to regain consciousness sooner than Dean could finish anything he wanted to do with the beautiful boy before him) got him moving. Still, it had been worth it: Sam was staring at him, alert and with him now.

“Let’s get out of here.”

They spun out of the gravel driveway a little faster than he’d meant to, but there was no sign of Justin in the rearview mirror. Dean had to talk to his baby for the first five minutes of driving, telling her how much he’d missed her and that he wouldn’t leave her again. Then he had to ask Sam for directions back to the motel. Every few seconds, he’d glance over to see Sam smiling at him.

He wasn’t an idiot; he hadn’t forgotten about Becca, the way Sam had talked about witches on the phone to Bobby, or the look on his face as he’d stared at the back of Justin’s head like he was imagining carving it out like a jack ‘o lantern. But Dean couldn’t think of a way to broach the subject now, not when he was just so fucking grateful to _see_ again, to press the pedal to the metal as they roared down the highway, on their way to get the hell out of this town. There were so many better ways to celebrate getting his sight back and the relaxation in Sam that hadn’t been there for the last forty-eight hours, once they got to their next motel. Talking could wait.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to onlythefireborn, sylvia_locust, and firesign10 for excellent feedback. All remaining errors and weirdness are our own.
> 
> Also, a heads-up that I can, at long last, tell you reliably that we have fewer than fifteen chapters until the end of Part Two.

Bobby stepped onto the porch as the first sounds of the Impala’s engine announced its entrance into his yard. The July sunlight glared off of the metal husks looming over his property, prompting him to shade his eyes as the car rumbled to a stop.  
  
He’d grown adept at gauging how the boys were doing from the second they got out of the Impala. Not just physically—counting limps, bruises, or other obvious injuries—but how things were between them. Some days, Dean would pause by the fender, cautious and anxious as he waited for Sam to reach his side before they came up to the house together, watching each other’s back against any threats.  
  
Today was not one of those days. Dean grinned at Sam as they slammed their doors almost in sync, then he ambled easily up the drive, sure that Sam would catch him and be confident enough to follow alone. Sam did, his stride longer and looser, shoulders more at ease, everything about him ten times more confident than the last time Bobby had seen him.  
  
He’d grown, too. Still far too thin, like a heavy wind would knock him down (if you didn’t know the strength underneath his long-sleeved plaid shirt), but shooting upward like a tree that had finally gotten a hint of goddamn sunlight and was making a break for it. Bobby couldn’t keep a smile off his face, and he didn’t really try.  
  
“Dean,” he said, clasping the boy’s hand as Dean reached the top of the steps. “Sam.” Bobby nodded to him. “Looks like you’re heading to beat Dean in the skyscraper department.”  
  
Sam and Dean blinked at him, confused, until Sam looked over at Dean. Bobby could see the exact moment Sam realized that his eyes weren’t quite even with Dean’s anymore, as he jolted and then bent his knees in denial. “No!” he protested. “But Dean’s…”  
  
Bobby snorted a laugh and stood aside, holding the screen door open to let them in.  
  
“I told you, Sammy!” Dean called, laughing as he made for Bobby’s fridge. “What did I tell you!”  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sam slunk in, hands thrust in his pockets, head tucked close to his chest.  
  
Bobby hadn’t meant to dampen the new confidence he’d seen in Sam, so he let it go. Plenty of time later to razz Dean about being the short guy (and at six-foot-one, who’d have figured he’d ever get that label?), and he didn’t need to be bringing it up now. He figured the same thing applied to the mishap in Louisiana, because the boys had given him only the bare bones of what went down (sounding cagey and unsettled even over the phone) before Bobby got the jubilant call a couple nights ago that they were headed back north, his way.  
  
“I’m glad you boys could come,” Bobby said. “Haven’t had company up here for the Fourth in a dog’s age.”  
  
“Is that like dog’s years?” Dean called, coming back into the room with two opened beers and a swagger. “Where it’s really only one but feels longer?”  
  
“Probably the holiday’s  _gonna_ feel longer, with you idjits lying around. Are you swiping my beer already?”  
  
Dean gave him one of his cheekiest, most shameless grins. “Does it count as swiping if I bring you one, too?”  
  
“Yes, yes it does.” But Bobby accepted the second bottle and took a swig. “So, you boys want fireworks or anything? I’ve got burgers and beer, but you want anything special, we’ll have to run to town and see what the weekenders haven’t picked clean.”  
  
“Nah.” Dean shook his head. “Much as I like them, by the third there’s never anything really good, and it’s expensive as shit, you know? Besides, between the three of us we could probably build something that’ll be more impressive than those flashbangs.”  
  
Sam turned from studying Bobby’s bookshelf. “Oh, like that time you thought that leaving the gas can in the haunted house was ‘basically the same’ as tossing in a lighter? Is that the kind of impressive flashbang you’re looking for? ‘Cause we should at least make sure the Impala’s out of range from any projectiles this time. You nearly fainted when you saw how close that pipe landed.”  
  
Bobby damn near dropped his bottle. Not only did Sam have a whole new tone of voice (lively, confident, even playfully mocking), but he was looking at Dean with a light in his eyes that Bobby hadn’t seen before either, something amused and affectionate, but balanced with a familiar exasperation.  
  
Dean sputtered in outrage, which Bobby well knew covered guilt. “Dude, I did  _not_ almost faint. And that was a one time experiment!”  
  
“You r-remember stuff like that,” Sam pointed out. He looked at Bobby, and his smile only dimmed by a shade. “There was a lot of fire.”  
  
Bobby squinted at him. “You’ve gotten  _sassy_.”  
  
Sam turned bright red as Dean laughed, and Sam stuck to monosyllables for the next hour. But for the first time since they’d met, Bobby felt that the kid wasn’t  _afraid_ of him, just embarrassed.  
  
There was something satisfying about embarrassing Winchesters. He could get used to having two boys to practice it on.  
  
~  
  
Being back in Bobby’s house, drinking beer, watching Sam actually dare to tease him in front of Bobby, was a strange experience. Dean felt like it should have felt better, like some kind of triumph, but to be honest, it felt like a hollow victory, like there was some monster just waiting behind his back to hit him while he was down.  
  
Not much to celebrate, for one thing. The Fourth had never been much of a holiday for him and John. A good excuse to get drunk, steal a kiss from the hottest guy or girl around, and light off some fireworks. Sometimes the season had its advantages for hunting (no one asked questions about things exploding, and when else could you legally buy low-grade explosives hassle-free?), but neither of them ever got choked up about the day itself.  
  
He’d known since kindergarten that the ASC was a bunch of power-inflated dicks (though he hadn’t used those exact words at the tender age of five and a half in Mrs. Montgomery’s class). In John and Dean Winchester’s world, cops, Congress, lawyers, CPS, IRS, FBI, fucking road construction, and the goddamn military complex were all on the same shit list. But only recently had Dean reached the age and distance to wonder what the fuck the country had left to celebrate.  
  
He’d spent a year united with the kid he’d waited all his life to be with, and it had been tougher—hell, it had been more fucking excruciating—than he’d ever imagined. He’d learned to see the world through Sam’s eyes, to understand what and why so many things scared him. Dean had picked up plenty of things to add to the Winchester shit list this last year (assholes who cracked jokes about what went on in prison bunks, just to name one), and he wasn’t fooling himself thinking they had reached the end. He knew he’d only seen the tip of the iceberg. There was so much Sam wouldn’t tell him, a fuckton that Dean was afraid to ask about because he wasn’t sure that, when the time came, he would be able to handle it.  
  
And then there was shit that had happened right in front of him, but he couldn’t quite explain.  
  
He didn’t like to think about Louisiana. His memories were black as night and colored by fear, helplessness, and an anger that he didn’t like to look at too closely. Sam had been great and badass, but Dean couldn’t help but remember how Sam had tried to reassure him that he had hated that blindness, too. Sam knew that same fear and powerlessness, and not from a hunt.  
  
Dean also couldn’t stop thinking about his first sight of Sam after the blindness had lifted: his face stony, his hands steady on the gun pointed right at the head of a shivering kid tied up like a hog.  
  
The blankness there on Sam’s face unnerved Dean; he’d seen hints of it on other hunts, but never that level of closed-off fury. Dean had always thought that Sam was hottest when he went up against monsters twice his size, exhibiting a fearlessness that no one could ever take from him, but there was a difference between reckless courage and the ice-cold rage he had seen that day.  
  
That was just part of the up-close-and-personal look at the damage inflicted on Sam by an agency that was, by all civilian accounts, America’s savior. Congress wrote the ASC a blank check year after year, and that money lined the pockets of the men who had given Sam his scars, his nightmares, that haunted look in his eyes too many days of the year—not to mention the blank, broken ruthlessness that Dean glimpsed only now and again. They were the reason Sam flinched from him sometimes, couldn’t go to supermarkets on a bad day, and hated to be noticed by anyone.  
  
Dean and Bobby were drinking on the back porch at dusk while Sam did the dishes. Dean had tried to help, but Sam had told him to relax, go hang with Bobby, and “Stop getting in the way!” in a tone that Dean thought meant Sam wanted some space to himself as well. The night was closing in, and the mosquitos were out. Not enough to drive him and Bobby back inside, but Dean could feel them skating across his arms, and he found himself slapping at them absently.  
  
“You’re real quiet,” Bobby said, after a long while of nothing but crickets and distant fireworks in the night. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you, it’s hard to get peace around here with you two underfoot, but you also look like you’re straining your noggin about something.” When Dean gave him a look, Bobby shrugged. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself, is all.”  
  
Dean huffed a laugh. “You ever wonder why the hell we’re celebrating?”  
  
“Yep.”  
  
Dean blinked at him. “Yep?”  
  
“That’s what I said. I figure anyone who carries a gun and has had a touchy relationship with the powers-that-be starts thinking that, this time of year. Independence Day.  _Ha_.” Bobby snorted and took a long draw from his bottle.  
  
“It’s just, what’s this fucking holiday about? Independence? A bunch of our ancestors saying fuck you to a bunch of other ancestors, just so they can go on to fuck with people? Where does the government get off expecting me to be happy, to bleed red-white-and-blue, after what they did to Sam, what they allow in the name of  _security_ and whatever the fuck else? Why should I be happy lighting up fucking sparklers when I want to burn that goddamn—” Dean cut himself off and took another drink to hold back the idea and the dark violent impulse that sometimes eclipsed everything else.  
  
Bobby rocked a little in his chair. “Independence Day is a funny thing for crazy bastards like us. Because government does good things, much as I hate to admit it. They build schools and bridges and roads—”  
  
“Fucking road construction,” Dean muttered.  
  
“—and have law enforcement and social security,” Bobby continued. “But that’s not equal, and one man walking down the road can be perfectly safe and another can fear for his life anytime a cop shows up. It ain’t fair and it ain’t liberating, and it ain’t free.  _We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights_.” Bobby took a pull on his drink. “The right to shut up and sit down, maybe.”  
  
“How do you get past it?” Dean asked. “Or, do you just—?” He gestured, unable to put what he meant into words.  
  
Bobby caught Dean’s eye, and then pointed out into the darkness. “What do you see?”  
  
Dean looked. In the distance were the faintest flashes of light, multi-colored flowers made out of fire. “The fireworks down in Sioux Falls?”  
  
“Yeah. And who do you suppose is lighting them off? Normal people, the kind we’ve never really known except in passing. Folks who are grateful for the roads, the schools, and a paid vacation day. Well, they bitch about them, but they know they can count on them. Folks who want an excuse to light something on fire as much as we do, and who enjoy a good burger on the grill. Families, friends, neighbors, celebrating an ideal together, even if the reality ain’t what we’d like it to be. Now, what do you hear back there?” He gestured back into the house.  
  
Sam was finishing up the dishes. The light flowed out from Bobby’s sturdy house, bathing them on the porch, and Dean could hear his kid humming (sounded like Queen, or maybe David Bowie) as he washed and dried. Bobby’s old rocking chair squeaked.  
  
“You trying to tell me something about family?” Dean felt his stomach drop. Because it was true, Bobby was the closest he had to family (real family, because no damn Campbell could count), and Sam was his everything, but it tasted wrong tonight. Nothing sat well, and even the beer in his hand felt too cold, the distant fireworks more threat than comfort.  
  
“There’s gonna be bad days,” Bobby said matter-of-factly. “Days you don’t know why you’re out there protecting anyone, days you don’t know what you’re fighting for. But it helps remembering what’s important. And it helps knowing that it eases up after a while. Hey, you want another beer?” Bobby pushed up from his chair. “That helps too, sometimes.”  
  
“I don’t want to get drunk, Bobby.”  
  
Bobby put his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Then don’t. But if you’re down, don’t think of this as anything but what it is: a visit with people who care about you. Let the rest go. I’ll send Sam out, if he’s not done.”  
  
Sam appeared at the screen door. “No, I’m done. Were you...coming in?”  
  
“Yeah.” Bobby waved the empty bottle. “Grabbing another beer. You want anything, Sam?”  
  
“No, thank you. I could get it for you, if you wanted?”  
  
“Thanks, but I was going to hit the head, too. You stick with Dean a while, I’m sure he’s tired of me and my old bones.”  
  
Sam smiled, unsure but at ease, and stepped past Bobby as he entered the house. He came over to Dean and didn’t resist when Dean pulled him down beside him, hip to hip. Dean wrapped his arm around Sam’s waist, hooking his fingers into Sam’s belt loop.  
  
“What’re you looking at?” Sam asked.  
  
“Fireworks over Sioux Falls.”  
  
Sam leaned against him. “They’re beautiful.”  
  
“Yeah, they are,” Dean agreed. And if he wasn’t looking at the fireworks, well, that was between him and the darkness.  
  
~*~  
  
For Alice Campbell, the Fourth of July was one of the few days in the year that she truly felt she could let her hair down, literally and metaphorically. Neither hunting nor politics encouraged ease and comfort, but today was about family, fireworks, and the U.S. of A., and she was going to relax. She dug a pair of cutoff jeans out of her closet (probably she hadn’t worn them since the  _last_ Fourth of July), threw a neat plaid shirt over a white tank, and drove out of town with the windows cracked and the radio’s top 40 blaring loud enough to leave after-echoes in her ears. She was headed for Jonah’s lake house outside of D.C.  
  
Cousin Jonah had started the annual Fourth of July party the year after Uncle Samuel passed away. There had almost always been some kind of family gathering before then, but Jonah was the first one to make it official. That first year he had even sent out invitations to all the cousins. A couple of the older Campbells (more than half drunk, some still wearing black bands to mourn Samuel’s passing) had talked about how nice it was to see different branches of the vast Campbell tree outside of a hunt or a funeral.  
  
Since that first party, anyone with a speck of Campbell blood was welcome to Jonah’s place to drink, eat, and be merry, but some other exclusive invitations were sent as well. At least a quarter of the guests would be politicians and lobbyists, the exact sort of suited bastards that Alice would usually have to pretty herself up for and smile.  
  
But not on the Fourth. Jonah’s party was a Campbell event, held on Campbell property. Not a fundraiser, not honoring any Hill bigwig or general. It was simply a celebration of family, of Campbells, and of America. No one had better proof of their love and commitment to America than the Campbells. Alice Campbell had nothing to prove to anyone today, and she intended to enjoy it.  
  
D.C. was sweltering, but the day cooled as she left behind the concrete of the city’s neatly arranged streets and hit the country. Jonah’s property was well guarded and heavily armed, as befitted the home of the leader of an important (arguably the most important) government agency. Alice knew, from contact with Jonah and the ASC’s movers and shakers, that the only difference between the security here and some of the smaller ASC facilities was that in his own home, Jonah preferred his defenses to be subtly attractive or concealed so as to not attract unwanted attention from his less defense-minded neighbors.  
  
The guard at the gatehouse checked her ID and administered the silver prick and holy-water test with neat efficiency. Afterward, he grinned at her.  
  
“Welcome to the party, cuz,” he said.  
  
She grinned right back. “Thank. I’ll save you a brew for when you get off, yeah?”  
  
“Ha, you do that, Alice! Enjoy!”  
  
She rolled on through, waving back, making a mental note to get his name from someone at the party.  
  
Plenty of cars, ranging from rust-buckets to Porsches, were already parked along the long driveway. She pulled her BMW up behind a gorgeous hotrod red Camaro and got out to join the party.  
  
A refreshing breeze rustled the trees shading Jonah’s spacious and carefully trimmed lawn, and Alice dodged barefoot children chasing one another as she walked down to the pier. She waved at Jonah, who was already flipping burgers and brats on his shiny two-tiered grill, somehow still impeccable in his polo shirt and shorts. He barely lifted a hand in acknowledgement, deep in conversation with a man who had “bigwig” practically written on his forehead. Alice gave a couple friends a quick hello or hug and then leaped into Mark’s motorboat just before he pulled away from the dock.  
  
She took a seat near the stern, accepting the beer her uncle Andrew passed over, then sat back to enjoy the feel of the spray. She’d been stuck at a desk so long that fieldwork was like a distant, blurred memory of adrenaline and gunpowder, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent hours in the sun, laughing with a beer in her hand, throat bared to the wind whipping around the speedboat. It had been too long since she’d felt so alive.  
  
Her cousin Mark was at the wheel, beer balanced in the cup holder next to him, arguing good-naturedly with Daniel (a more distant cousin, not a Campbell) about how to steer the boat. Occasionally they passed another boat or jet ski, and Alice waved at them as they whooped back.  
  
Uncle Andrew tried to start up a conversation about her recent CNN appearance (leaning in just a little too close), but she waved him off and changed the topic to how the Ravens’ draft picks were shaping up. She stuck to the same principle when she returned to shore and had to dodge grabby semi-relatives and insecure politicians who wanted to put a word in her ear. Weather, sports, car mechanics, and the suggestion that they touch base with her after the weekend deflected the lot of them, and she headed to the volleyball sandpit.  
  
Just after her second match with some of the younger Campbells ended, Jonah began serving up plates of hamburgers, hot dogs, shrimp, salmon, and vegetable kebabs. Alice hit the ladies’ room to freshen up and wash her sandy hands before joining the line for food.  
  
Debbie Campbell—one of the matriarchs of the Campbell family, though she had never hunted, and avoided discussing the business with almost comical determination—stood behind the serving table, checking the silverware and condiments supply.  
  
As Alice moved closer, she called, “Aunt Debbie, did you make that glorious dessert I saw in the kitchen?”  
  
Debbie beamed at her. “That’s an old recipe of Carol’s—Jonah’s mother, I mean, not Amanda’s daughter. She used to make it every Fourth. Thought it was time to bring it back.”  
  
Plates in hand, the family and guests drifted toward long picnic tables set up on the other side of the house. Alice took a seat next to Mark. As she munched on deliciously buttery corn on the cob, she surveyed the packed tables of familiar faces (the guests had been politely herded to their own table, or cordially invited into the house’s big dining room by folks who actually liked hobnobbing, to separate them from the family). Everyone who belonged here was present—well, nearly.  
  
Some had died hunting. Sometimes they just died. Other times they left the life, like Debbie had for years, or actively opposed it. And some kept up the mission, without accepting that the family was there for them, doing the same thing.  
  
As though he’d picked up some freaky mind trick from getting too close to a freak on one too many hunts, Mark turned to her, a smear of ketchup on his lip, and said, “So, the grapevine says you were hot on Dean Winchester’s trail not so long ago. Close enough to count his teeth, I heard.”  
  
Alice swallowed her mouthful of corn and wiped her mouth (tempted to point out his ketchup, but not quite that nice) before answering. “Missed him by a couple hours at a Minnesota hospital.”  
  
“He’d been hit?”  
  
“Not him—his freak. The one Jonah gave him.” Alice spoke quietly. This talk was right on the line between work and family, and she knew Aunt Debbie would vehemently disapprove of shop talk during the festivities.  
  
“Hm.” Mark’s mouth twisted, his eyes fixed somewhere down the table. “Jonah wants to check in with him now? I always thought it was weird he just let Winchester go off the grid like that. To be honest, I couldn’t believe he actually gave him the freak, not after all—”  
  
“That’s something we can discuss later, Mark, if you still have an opinion.”  
  
They both jumped and twitched for their sidearms, before twisting in their seats to see Jonah behind them, smiling amiably as he held a sagging paper plate stacked high with grilled corn, sausage, and mashed potatoes.  
  
“After all, we wouldn’t want to upset Aunt Debbie. You know how she feels about business talk on holidays,” he said. “Respect is important. So if you have any commentary on my decisions, we’ll save them for the work week.”  
  
“Yes, sir,” Mark said.  
  
Mark was a smart-talking hothead who usually stopped an inch before offending someone. Alice had worked with him more than once in D.C., and she tended to grit her teeth and hope the good old boys’ club would let his attitude slide. The matter-of-fact obedience he put into those two words surprised her.  
  
Most hunters who had to interact with Jonah in D.C. treated him with the brash ease they would give a paper-pusher who used to carry a gun. Alice wondered some days when he would snap and shoot the idiots. But Mark responded like he had already seen the gun.  
  
Jonah walked around the table and set his plate down across from them, then sat down. “As for our cousin Dean,” Jonah said, “don’t worry. We’ll find him when the time is right.”  
  
~*~  
  
A few days after the holiday, Dean and Sam drove into town with a shopping list from Bobby. The day was hot and dry, but it felt good to ride with their windows rolled down.  
  
In the Total Stop Food Store, Dean’s attention wandered to Sam more often than the next item on their list. From the salsa aisle to the coolers of beer, Sam’s shoulders were relaxed, and he seemed almost oblivious to the other shoppers sharing the aisle. Dean knew that Sam’s version of “oblivious” was very different from most people’s (Dean could probably ask later and Sam would be able to tell him the shirt color of the guy buying peaches in the fruit aisle), but he was as relaxed around those strangers as Dean had ever seen him.  
  
Dean looked down to hide his smile. As they pulled out of the parking lot to head back toward Bobby’s, he cleared his throat.  
  
“So, uh, I was thinking—it’s been about a year since—we started this whole thing together.” Ten days short of a year, to be exact, but no need to make a big deal about it. Dates, numbers, anniversaries, those things could jinx you. Two decades of sitcoms had taught him that, and he could damn well believe it. Before Sam, the only anniversary Dean had shared with another person (birthdays didn’t count) had been November second with John. That made him...nervous. Just another reason to have this conversation now, rather than on the sixteenth.  
  
Sam looked over, startled, and Dean rambled on. “Yeah, it just seemed like a good point to check in, see how you like this whole set-up we got. Or if you wanna shake anything up. ‘Cause we could, y’know. If you want to go back to Boulder for a while, stay put, look at schools. Or if you want to do some digging into … before, parents and family and your hometown and stuff, we could do that too.” Dean shrugged, as though it was all the same to him.  
  
Sam’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth once, twice, before turning to stare back at the road ahead of him. Then his gaze returned to Dean. “I like what we do,” he said quietly. ”Hunting, saving people. Sharing the road with you.”  
  
Dean allowed himself a smile, a quick glance to make eye contact and measure the sincerity in Sam’s face. “Awesome. I like that, too. But you know that. And sometimes—I mean, not so much anymore, but it used to be like—you don’t have to like what I like, just because.”  
  
“I know,” Sam said, and he actually sounded annoyed at Dean, which never stopped being fucking awesome. “I like lots of things you don’t like, now. Like Sarah McLachlan and The Smiths.”  
  
Dean snorted. “I’ll be damned if I know where you got that from. But it’s cool, you know, I ain’t got a problem with that. I was just thinking—it’s been a hell of a long time since I had to ask you a No question.”  
  
Sam winced, even as he let out a short laugh that ended with his face turned away. Dean couldn’t blame him; he’d usually rather stab himself in the thigh than reminisce about those early days. But for this one moment he _wanted_ to remember, he wanted them both to realize how fucking far they’d come. They’d survived, in spite of all the ways Dean had fucked up and hadn’t known what the hell he was doing, in spite of all the things Sam had expected that neither of them had been able to deal with. After today, they could go back to never speaking of it again, and that would be fine with him.  
  
Dean cleared his throat. “So, you got anything coming up on your bucket list? Anything you heard or read about that you’d like to give a whirl? Just give me a heads up so I’ll know which exit to take.”  
  
Sam went quiet, considering the question with that thoughtful (also damn adorable and sexy) tilt of his head. It went on long enough that Dean’s brain started churning its own list for what Sam might want. Hit up a Six Flags? No, Sam probably wasn’t interested in being strapped into an open car and dropped from three stories up with half a dozen screaming strangers. A rock concert? That could work, if they went to one of the more open-air events and they could score a good seat far enough from the stage not to get suffocated by crowds. Would Sam want to smoke a joint there? That wasn’t like underage drinking, right? Maybe he would make out with Dean there, the bass beating through their bones while the blue smoke lightened their bodies and left them indifferent to anyone and everything but the press of hands and lips and tongue.  
  
Okay, that was probably a little too specific and outside Sam’s current list of favorite things. If Dean featured in Sam’s bucket list, they probably had a private room. One with a bed.  
  
Holy shit. What if Sam was thinking about sex right now? About how to ask Dean for that? What the hell would Dean  _say?_  Dean had made the PG rule almost a year to the day, but they’d left that in the dust months ago. Sam had become so confident and  _fearless_ in approaching Dean, kissing him, pulling their clothes off. He didn’t flinch or try to hide himself or protest when Dean touched him first. Did that mean they were ready for more? Maybe a _lot_ more? How could Dean know it was safe? If Sam asked  _right now_ , and Dean couldn’t think of a reason to say no—Jesus Christ, what they could be doing  _tonight_ —no, fuck that, they wouldn’t have to go back to Bobby’s at all, they could get a room in town, stop for the necessary supplies, Dean thought he’d seen a store half a mile back that probably sold lube—  
  
Sam turned to him. “Can we go to a museum? An—an art museum?”  
  
Dean nearly choked. It took him an effort to catch his breath and another moment to be sure of his composure before he could answer. “Sure thing, Sammy.”  
  
“We—we don’t have to,” Sam said, uncertainty creeping into his voice. “It was just an—”  
  
“Nope, art museum it is.” Dean smiled, though he didn’t dare take his eyes off the road. “You got one picked out?”  
  
“No.” Sam’s eyes were fixed on him, Dean could feel it. “It doesn’t have to be soon. Or even an art museum, science would be cool, too. Just whenever we have time and one’s nearby. It’s not a big deal.”  
  
“Sure it is,” Dean said gamely. He’d been in plenty of museums after hours, with the lights off and every nerve on edge for the sound of a guard or a ghoul. He hadn’t really ever looked at the exhibits, unless they contained bones or weaponry. He wasn’t sure what else there was, or if he’d like it, but even hours of boredom would be worth it to watch Sam’s face. “Let’s do it. Anything you want, Sam, if it’s on your bucket list, that’s what we’re gonna do. Oh, hey, there’s another thing I’ve been meaning to get you. Show you when we get back.”  
  
After unloading the groceries, Dean borrowed Bobby’s camera and held it up for Sam to see. “Gotta update your ID.”  
  
Sam stared hard at the camera for a long minute, then transferred that intense focus to Dean. “I’ve changed since the last one, haven’t I?”  
  
“Yep,” Dean said, pinning one of Bobby’s spare white sheets to the curtain rods for a background. “Just a little.”  
  
Sam nodded and set his shoulders back. “Okay.”  
  
Taking the photo went a hell of a lot easier than last time. Sam didn’t look even a little afraid of the camera now, but faced the lens steadily, chin up. Dean would have liked a cheeky smile too, but maybe that wasn’t the best for a state ID photo anyway. He’d see about stealing one or two for himself some other time.  
  
Bobby processed the new ID (Sam looking on curiously as they used the laminator and laid some rudimentary hologramming), and the finished product was at  _least_ as good as the one Dean had made last year.  
  
Sam spent a few minutes studying the new card, then the old, side by side. “It’s better, isn’t it?”  
  
Dean knew Sam wasn’t referring to the card’s ability to pass inspection. “Hell yeah, it is. Plus it’s easier to say you’re eighteen when you’re a year closer.”  
  
Sam nodded, switching his attention back to his first ID. He gave a quick shudder and placed the card onto the table, picture down. “We better get rid of this one.”  
  
“Give it here.” Dean palmed it and slid it into his pocket, but he had no intention to destroy it just yet. As much as he hated to remember the early days, he thought there’d be times when he would need a physical reminder (as good as a sock to the jaw) of just how far they’d come.  
  
Not just for bad times, though, when it seemed like they’d gotten nowhere at all, just spinning their wheels. He wanted it so he’d never forget where they’d started.  
  
Toward the end of the day, Sam finished up some schoolwork he had insisted on doing even though it was a holiday weekend and  _summer_ besides, and Dean joined him on the porch, polishing off a beer and a bag of chips.  
  
Bobby wandered out of his office where he had been doing some “homework“ of his own. “Hey, Dean, come in for a second?” His tone was too casual to feel easy.  
  
Sam looked up, wary and alert, but Bobby waved a hand in dismissal. “We won’t be more than a minute or two. Just have to talk to Dean about some old business.”  
  
Sam watched them with narrowed eyes, but didn’t ask questions and turned back to his books as they moved back into the cooler darkness of the house.  
  
“Hey, Bobby,” Dean said, trying to ignore the twist in his stomach. “What’s up that you couldn’t have said in front of Sam?”  
  
Bobby leaned against his desk, crossing his arms, expression set and neutral. “I got a message from Ellen, at the Roadhouse, and it reminded me of something I hadn’t wanted to ask with you boys out on the road, not over unsecured lines.”  
  
The tension in Dean’s gut expanded, but he braced himself with a smile. “Yeah? Hit me.”  
  
“You heard anything from John lately?”  
  
Dean’s smile dropped so fast he swore he could hear it hit the floor. “No. Why?”  
  
Bobby rubbed at the back of his neck. “Nothing. Probably nothing. I just thought—well, it don’t matter what I thought because you haven’t.”  
  
“No, Bobby,” Dean took a step forward, bringing Bobby’s gaze back to him. “Why the hell would you bring it up if it were nothing? You think me and Sam are—”  _in danger_ , he wanted to say, or  _screwed_ , or  _should be counting our days as borrowed time_ , but he didn’t say any of that. He didn’t have to, because it was implied in everything if  _oh shit John was on their trail_...  
  
But Bobby shook his head. “It’s not that. It’s...crap, it’s the reverse, okay? John’s not after you, as far as I can tell. He’s gone completely off the grid.”  
  
“He’s always been good at that, staying under the radar.” How Dean knew that. There’d been long years where they never hit the same town twice and a familiar face was as rare as a blue moon, sometimes crashing in four different towns per week and using a different name in every one.  
  
“Of course. I’ve never been great at  _finding_ him. But other hunters slip me intel when they’ve seen him, and I keep an eye out for hunts that feel like his style, or a credit card trail that sends up flags. Usually I can figure out where he’s  _been_ , when I’m looking. And I’ve been looking lately. But for the last couple of months there’s been nothing. No hunts, no trace. Either he’s gotten better at leaving no trail, or…” Bobby shrugged.  
  
“Or there’s no trail.” It was sick and it was wrong, but Dean’s first fleeting thought was that maybe that would be good, if John had ceased to exist as quickly as the civilian in him had died to make way for the soldier and hunter. But tentative relief was quickly swamped by a vicious guilt comparable only to knowing that Sam wouldn’t have so many scars or nightmares, if only Dean had gotten him out faster.  
  
If John just disappeared, he would never again be a threat to either of them. But John was still his father, and thinking about a world where he didn’t exist twisted him up hard as a vengeful spirit’s hand buried in his small intestine.  
  
A distant third reaction was worry. John, the best hunter out there, wouldn’t go down silently, quietly, and Dean didn’t want to think about something out there badass enough to bring him down. “Where did you find him last?”  
  
“The last conclusive sighting was at the Roadhouse in late April. He used his own name and one of the cards that he doesn’t care too much about. I have a couple maybe-hunts in the area wrapped up since then, but I wouldn’t swear to either one being him. After that, there’s nothing.”  
  
Dean took a careful breath and then let it out, slow. “That’s...fuck, Bobby, you know how to sock a guy in the gut. I can’t...I have to think about this. Anything else?”  
  
Bobby shook his head. “No, that’s it. I didn’t figure you wanted me to bring it up cold with—” He nodded back toward the porch where Sam was still bent over his books.  
  
Dean wasn’t sure he was grateful for that. Sure, it saved Sam a shock, and left him at least a little more prepared, but now he had to figure out how to put any of those feelings into words to Sam. “Yeah. Thanks.”  
  
~  
  
History was fascinating, and fun, and terrible sometimes (the books didn’t talk about everything, but Sam could read between the lines enough to know that the reals of the past had treated each other more like monsters than other human beings), but not fascinating enough for Sam to ignore either the tension in Bobby’s shoulders when he asked Dean into the house (out of earshot), or how Dean looked a little stunned when he came back out onto the porch. Sam felt the first frisson of adrenaline that he usually felt when braving a new public place or in the peak of a hunt, and he carefully put his book down on the armrest of the swing.  
  
“What’s up?” he asked.  
  
Dean looked at him, blank and unfocused for a long minute, and then stared out across the yard as he rubbed at his arms as though trying to get the blood moving again.  
  
Sam stood up and stepped closer to him, trying to catch his eye. “Dean, what happened?”  
  
Dean blinked at him. “Hey, Sammy, it’s…” For one horrible moment, Sam thought he would try to brush it off as nothing, but then he finished with, “John.”  
  
Sam almost swayed on his feet, feeling the blood drain from his face. He looked around the yard for another car or silhouette (but he would have heard one approach, of course he would have). “B-Bobby sighted him? Is he close?”  
  
“No.” Dean shook his head. “No, not...he’s missing. No signs of him, and Bobby...he just wanted to check if we’d heard something.”  
  
If Dean had heard of something, he meant, because there was no reason that a freak like Sam would hear anything of John Winchester, unless it was the second before he shoved a stake through the freak’s heart.  
  
“Have you?” Sam asked, trying to breathe. They hadn’t had any sign of Winchester in months, not since the black truck, and Sam had almost been able to stop looking over his shoulder, had forgotten that Dean’s father might still hate him for what he was and what he wanted so desperately not to be.  
  
“No, Sam,” Dean said. “Fuck, I haven’t talked to him in almost a year, and you know the last fucking time I thought we saw him. It’s just...I never thought he’d be gone, you know? I can’t believe he’s gone.” That last was said almost in a whisper, more lost and sad than Sam had ever heard him. Sam reached out to brace Dean’s back, and Dean shifted until he was leaning on Sam.  
  
Maybe Bobby was right. Maybe he was getting taller, almost tall enough that they were no longer the same height, and Sam could be the one to take the weight from Dean’s shoulders.  
  
Sam didn’t understand what it was to have a family, to be torn away from them. He didn’t really understand why Dean had been so obsessed about finding Sam’s birth family, the family that might have mourned him, but had to have been glad in the end to have a freak removed from their lives. But Sam wasn’t stupid; he could hear and see, and he knew that Dean cared very much. Bobby was Dean’s family, and Sam was, too (and wasn’t that a wonder and a miracle), but Sam also knew that John Winchester, whose name freaks whispered in fear at night, was also family to the man that he held in his arms while his own heart beat fast with adrenaline and fear. And he knew that for Dean, it mattered that Winchester had disappeared.  
  
“Where was he seen last?” Sam asked.  
  
“The Roadhouse, in Nebraska,” Dean answered. “Fuck, he’s probably just lying low, licking his wounds or something. There’s nothing to worry about. I mean, there  _is_ because he’s...but I shouldn’t be worrying about him, right? He’s...I should let it go, fuck.”  
  
It would be safer to let it go. Better for Sam’s freak neck and Dean’s soul for them to stay as far away from Winchester as possible. But Sam knew that he couldn't tell Dean that they should run, hide, or leave it be, not when he knew what it meant and how very powerful the bonds of family and blood could be.  
  
“We should check it out,” he said instead. The words almost stuck in his throat, but he forced himself to go on. “We don't want him to notice us if he’s just lying low, but... It would be better, I think, for us to check it out. Safer.” How exactly chasing the hunter would be safer he didn’t know. But he could do this for Dean, as Dean had done so many things for him.  
  
Dean stared at him, expression a mix of incredulity, amazement, and something deeper, an intense look that made Sam want to duck his head. “You sure about this, Sammy?”  
  
Sam did his best to smile. “Sure,” he said, though he was not sure at all.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to firesign10 for excellent feedback. All remaining errors and weirdness are our own. So very much our own.
> 
> WARNING: While this chapter does not return to Freak Camp, it features a lot of Freak Camp-esque headspace, which leads to a sexual situation between Dean and Sam that muddies the waters of full consent. If you would like to know more before beginning the chapter, we have a detailed SPOILER summary of the key scene in the end notes.

The Roadhouse wasn’t that far from Bobby’s; they could have made it in one long six-hour push. So it meant something that Dean took them on a three-day route. Sam didn’t ask about it, but he must have  _looked_ at him or something, because on the second day of the drive Dean started rambling—defensive, his uncertainty masked with brashness—about being followed, about making sure no one could trace them back to Bobby.  
  
Sam believed Dean’s words as much as he could, but it was hard to keep his hands from clenching on his knees, to keep Dean from seeing the fear under his skin. And maybe it really was okay that they were taking their time.  
  
~*~  
  
The closer they got to the Roadhouse, the less fucking sure Dean was about this whole thing.  
  
It was stupid to be riding into town, stupid to bring Sam into a place with this many hunters. (The Roadhouse wasn’t  _in_ town exactly, but a man needed more than beer and fried food to live on, most days anyway, so a fair amount of hunter business carried on down the street where they could get gas, beds, and shit like that.) Most of all, it was stupid to be chasing John.  
  
But he couldn’t stop.  
  
This wasn’t about figuring out where a threat had vanished to or checking up on a fellow hunter. It was about his dad not coming home for a little too long, and for once being old enough to do something about it.  
  
But that was the trick, wasn’t it? He wasn’t sure anymore where the line was between  _Dad_ and  _John_ , even though he’d been the one to draw it.  
  
The third night, they took a hotel room one town over (no sense being any more obvious than the Impala made them already), got takeout for dinner, and Dean spent the rest of that evening cleaning his guns, his knives, anything he could get his hands on. More than once he looked up, sure that Sam was watching him (and didn’t that suck, if Sam could tell that what they were doing wasn’t exactly smart), but each time Sam’s gaze was elsewhere. If the avoidance stemmed from fear, it would have made Dean sick, but he was pretty sure that it was worry hunching Sam’s shoulders and keeping his hands moving (kind of like Dean’s own, come to think of it). He couldn’t blame Sam for that.  
  
~  
  
The silence between them was a strange thing, almost a conversation in itself. For his part, Sam tried to fill it with support, tried to will the knowledge to Dean that he was here for him, beside him for whatever danger they were about to face. He wasn’t completely sure it was working.  
  
“The Roadhouse doesn’t open until eleven,” Dean said, breaking the silence. “No use showing up until then.”  
  
The blade Sam had been cleaning almost cut him when he twitched. Carefully, Sam put the knife aside. “You want to head over right then, or later?”  
  
“Might be a lunch rush.” Dean scrubbed at his eyes and ran his hands through his hair. “Yeah, showing up around eleven would probably be good. I’m not sure my...yeah, as long as Ellen’s there, I can put in a word with her and get out, and that should be it.”  
  
Sam nodded. That made sense. He didn’t know much about Ellen, and what he knew about the Roadhouse was mostly gossip and casual references picked up over the years, but he didn’t want Dean there any longer than he had to be either, not without backup. Objectively, Sam knew that Dean wasn’t in the same danger that Sam would face from a room full of hunters. But by that same logic and measure, he knew that Dean wasn’t as safe there as he had been when he was only John Winchester’s son.  
  
Before he became a  _freakfucker_ , the voice in the back of his head whispered. Sam shoved it away. It wasn’t true, either by Dean’s definition or literally. Still, the terrible truth was that plenty of hunters saw Dean that way now. Sam had never heard anyone say so outside of FREACS (the only hunters they associated with were Bobby and Pastor Jim, after all), but he’d heard it countless times inside the camp: the hunters held a derisive contempt for what they assumed to be Dean’s intention, like that qualified him as  _freakfucker_ in some way that didn’t apply to them.  
  
“You can drop me off somewhere in town before you go.” Sam hoped his voice was steadier and more certain than he felt. “Somewhere close, and you can meet me again afterward.”  
  
Dean raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You’re not staying here?”  
  
Sam didn’t want to be that far from Dean. He wanted to be close enough so that he could be there for Dean if the worst happened, even if it would cost him his life. But common sense told him that waiting in the Impala while Dean walked into a bar full of hunters would not be a good idea.  
  
“I want to be in town. I c-can’t go with you, but…” Sam shrugged. “M-maybe a restaurant or something? Then you could came back after and fill me in.”  
  
Dean nodded, slowly, but his eyes were a little wild, and Sam wasn’t sure how much he was hearing, how much he was actually processing. “Yeah. I’ll be glad to have you there, Sam.”  
  
And that was good, too.  
  
~*~  
  
Dean dropped Sammy at a little diner called Tina’s Cafe in downtown Berwyn. Sam waved as Dean drove away, his backpack slung over his shoulder like he was an honest-to-God college student or something. Dean had a flash of worry that that would send up a flag, that someone would notice there wasn’t a college or anything in the area, and then he could have kicked himself. Sam was young enough still to be in high school, so that was how he would pass. Just another kid trying to get some homework done without being bothered.  
  
He was stalling. Dean turned the Impala out toward the edge of town and the Roadhouse.  
  
Harvelle’s Roadhouse had been a center for hunters about as long as Dean had been alive. The rumors were that the owner, Ellen Harvelle, had been a hunter at one point herself, or someone close to her had been, and that was why the place welcomed hunters. Dean had even heard that the establishment had been hunter-friendly before the ASC existed. It wasn’t a place where you went to flash your badge and give a report. Rather, it was an establishment that had a cold drink and a sympathetic ear for wherever life had taken you.  
  
It wasn’t much to look at, but that was exactly the way the hunting community wanted it. Just a basic bar in the middle of nowhere, far enough from civilization that whatever was said (and whatever nasty might attack the place, should it come to that) could go unnoticed. Dean had only been there a handful of times with John, but he knew the folks fairly well, and it had been a good place to stop, lick their wounds, and catch up on whatever was going on with the hunter world beneath or around the ASC.  
  
The bar looked the same as Dean remembered. Dark, battered wood and a handful of pickup trucks in the gravel parking lot. Dean scanned them, but none were black, and he didn’t recognize any of the other ones.  
  
Stepping through the door, he realized he was re-entering a world he had thought he’d left behind for good. He’d been in bars since getting Sam out—hell, he’d been in bars  _with_ Sam, but here, hunting protocols were more openly evident. He walked over a Devil’s Trap scratched lightly into the floor, and most of the half-a-dozen men slouching at the bar were openly armed.  
  
They didn’t turn to look at him as he walked over, but he could feel their eyes on him just the same as he took a stool at the bar. It made his skin crawl. He hadn’t really been expecting the easy camaraderie of years past, a backslapping greeting, a couple crude jokes and all the beer he needed to wash down his sorrows. But he also hadn’t expected to feel this much of an outsider.  
  
Ellen herself was tending bar. She wore her long brown hair loose over her shoulders and a man’s denim shirt open over a grey tank top. Her eyebrows shot up when she saw Dean, but her smile looked genuine. The mild edge of concern was real enough too.  
  
“Dean, long time no see. What can I get you?”  
  
It wasn’t noon yet, but Dean felt that the moment called for a drink. “Beer. Whatever you’ve got on tap.”  
  
“Sure thing.”  
  
Ellen moved back around the bar, grabbing the glass and angling it under the tap. Dean was very aware of the eyes of the other men on him, their gaze like a spider skittering down his spine.  
  
If he had been on a ghost hunt in a house with this level of unease and distrust, he would have expected an attack any moment.  
  
Ellen set the pint down before him, and Dean took a swallow automatically, trying to get the acrid taste of that wariness out of his mouth. The fizz of the beer didn’t do much to dispel it.  
  
It took him another moment to realize that Ellen was watching him too. He wanted to believe that that was concern rather than shrewdness in her eyes, watching him down a beer at eleven in the a.m., but he wasn’t stupid enough to believe that was true.  
  
Dean put his glass down deliberately, like it was a hell of a lot more breakable than he knew it to be.  
  
“So,” he said. “How much holy water is in this beer?” He wanted it to come out light, but his voice cracked toward the end (though whether from anger or something else, he couldn’t tell), and his grip on the glass whitened his knuckles.  
  
Ellen winced, but she didn’t exactly look ashamed. She held up her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “Just a little.”  
  
Dean noticed that her other hand, the one resting someplace under the bar, hadn’t moved. He wondered if it was a shotgun, or something designed to specifically take out a supernatural threat. He forced his hand open, and the glass shivered and almost spilled on the bar. “Watch it, Ellen, or I’m going to start telling guys that you water your drinks.”  
  
“Better safe than dead.” Ellen smiled, but her expression wasn’t particularly cheery. “I’ve watered plenty drinks in my time, kid, and everyone knows it. How’ve you been?”  
  
“Oh, just aces.” Dean didn’t think she believed him. Good. He was lying through his teeth, and he’d always known that Ellen was a bright woman, so she really shouldn’t believe him. “We’ve been good.”  
  
He realized what he’d said the second it left his mouth, and he knew by her eyes and the stutter in conversation around him that others had heard him, too. It raised his hackles, made him feel even jumpier than he had been. But he would not be ashamed of Sam, and he would not be afraid of these assholes. So he said it again, loud and clear so everyone could hear him. “Yeah, we’ve been really good.”  
  
He was Dean fucking Winchester, and he wouldn’t have been able to look Sam in the eye if he’d let the unsaid threat in that room shut him up.  
  
“You and…” Ellen trailed off, eyebrows raised inquisitively, and Dean nodded.  
  
“Sam,” he said. “His name’s Sam. And he’d be able to drink your damn holy water just as well as I can.”  _Better than I can_. All the eyes in the room were on him now, he knew without checking.  
  
“You know that for a fact?”  
  
“Fuck I—” Dean stopped himself. She wasn’t screaming, she wasn’t threatening, she was just asking the questions that he had to respect because it was part of the hunter life, even if he wanted to tell her to fuck off for asking them about  _Sam_ , who he’d rescued half-dead from behind the fucking walls of FREACS itself. “Yeah, I do.”  
  
Ellen relaxed a little, and as hard as he found it to believe that she could have been asking without assuming, Dean felt better. No one else’s opinion here mattered the way hers did. Ellen was the final authority on who was welcome in her bar. “Good. So, you been hunting, or what—just putting your feet up in the mountains?”  
  
Dean nodded. “Yeah, we’ve been hunting. Took on a witch a while back.”  
  
“You hunt with—” She visibly stopped herself and restarted. “I’ve never known you to hunt with a partner.”  
  
“Sam’s good at it,” Dean said. “It’s a damn good thing he was there, or I’d be...well, let’s just say I wouldn’t be driving that Impala up to your door. He’s got good instincts and…”  _he runs toward danger, not away, he’s fearless and brave and he cares so much more than me, sometimes it makes me think I’m doing it wrong,_  “he’s really sharp.”  
  
One of the men stood abruptly, and Dean’s hand twitched toward his pistol, but the other guy, who looked vaguely familiar, walked out of the bar without a backward look.  
  
“Good,” Ellen said, after a doubtful pause. “That’s good. Anyone has a right to get out of the life, but I’m glad you’re still in it.” She nodded at the empty glass in front of him. “Want another, or did you come in for something other than the refreshments?”  
  
“I...yeah.” Dean shook himself, pulled himself together to ask the question he’d come in to ask. “I wondered if you’d seen John lately.”  
  
“Winchester?”  
  
“Who the fuck—who else would I be talking about?”  
  
She gave him a look. “I figured you meant your daddy, but there’s a couple dozen guys I know in the business by that name.”  
  
“Yeah, Dad.” Dean shifted. After consciously not calling John his dad for so long, it felt weird saying it again, out loud, to someone other than Bobby.  
  
Ellen shook her head. “He’s one that I haven’t seen for the last couple months. When he was here last he wasn’t drinking, or at least not much, but he looked a little crazy around the eyes.” She paused and eyed him, and something in Dean’s face made her nod like she’d seen what she was looking for. “If I didn’t know better I’d have thought he was on something stronger, but John’s a man of habit, and I don’t think he’d mess his reflexes up with drugs. He had a whiskey and told another guy, Gibson I think he was, that he couldn’t hunt with him because he was on his own lead. It was the ‘big one’.” Ellen managed to make the air-quotes both sarcastic and worried. “That’s all I know.”  
  
Dean felt cold. There was only one ‘big one’ that John wouldn’t have explained, and it was the ghost that they never talked about but was always there, just under the edges of their long nights and lonely hunts and bottles on November second.  
  
John always said, when he was drunk enough, that something hadn’t been right about the way that Mary died, and on every hunt, in every path, he’d been looking for something, searching for something more than Dean could ever see. It made his blood run cold and his heart speed up at the same time, until it felt like a winter mountain river running through his veins, fast and fierce and cold enough to kill.  
  
“Thanks, Ellen,” he said, getting his wallet out as he stood and dropping a couple of bills on the bar. “That’s...good to know.”  
  
“Want me to tell him you’re looking for him if I see him?”  
  
Dean laughed, and it didn’t sound right. “I’d rather you didn’t.”  
  
“Yeah, I can see that. Tell you what—I see him, I’ll give Bobby a call and let him know.”  
  
“That’d be great.” And Dean meant that from the bottom of his heart. “He’s...my dad, you know? But we’re…”  
  
“Not on the best of terms?” Her lips quirked.  
  
Dean huffed out a non-response. “Where’s Jo hiding these days? Thought for sure I’d find her over at the arcade.” Jo had been his on-again, off-again friend growing up, the most constant one he had after Sam (as John had frequented Freak Camp more often than the Roadhouse). He and Jo had forever been chasing and pranking each other, and try as he might, he couldn’t beat her high scores on the video arcade. He hadn’t seen her now in more than a couple of years.  
  
Ellen shrugged, suddenly reserved again. “Oh, she’s around. No hunter can keep tabs on a teenage girl.”  
  
Dean paused, then tested the waters. “Well, I’d like to say hi before I leave town. Think I can catch her if I swing by tonight?”  
  
“I wouldn’t count on it.” Ellen’s smile was pleasant, but there was steel under her tone.  
  
One of the hunters closest to him—a burly man with reddish hair—snorted. “Cut the shit, boy. None of us are gonna let you get near that girl.”  
  
Dean rounded on him with a burst of adrenaline. “What the fuck does that mean?”  
  
The hunter—Gregson, the name came to him—glanced at him coolly, not yet bothering to face him. The little of his expression Dean could see was pure animosity. “We know what the fuck you’ve been doing with your  _Sam_.” The jeering disgust he loaded into Sam’s name made Dean imagine smashing his high-strength glass on the counter and grinding the shards into Gregson’s eyes. “And you know why you’ve been making yourself scarce . So don’t go acting like you’re fit to show a girl a good time, ‘less it’s some whore who won’t get any dirtier—”  
  
Dean lunged out of his seat, his stool tumbling to the floor, and Gregson stood (half a head taller) a split-second later.  
  
_“Cut that shit out!”_  Ellen’s voice rang across the bar, freezing them both in their tracks. “Both of you know better than to start that shit here! Not another word. You either sit down and ignore each other, or leave. One at a time, because I don’t need blood all over my parking lot either.”  
  
“I’m going,” Dean said. His heartbeat was pounding in his ears, but he felt clear-headed despite the adrenaline. He could see the face of every hunter in the bar, and they were all unfriendly. He knew almost all of them, familiar enough—some John had trusted enough to have his back—but he knew now that none would take his side. Even Ellen.  
  
Dean felt the eyes on him as he left the bar, could feel the threat in the air as soon as he was away from Ellen. And he could swear, as the door closed behind him, that he heard someone mutter “Freaklover” just loud enough for him to hear.  
  
In the past, the Roadhouse had been like a second home—after Dad, the Impala, and the road. Now he felt more like he was walking out of a battlefield, bridges burning behind him.  
  
~  
  
Tina’s Cafe was a cute little diner with mismatched chairs, heavy pottery cups, and round tables just the right size to spread out a few textbooks on and pretend that he was studying while he waited, worrying about Dean.  
  
He drank his tea and turned pages just often enough that it could look like he was actually reading, all the while listening for the Impala. Other vehicles came and went.  
  
When a battered sedan pulled in and rounded the side of the building, Sam didn’t pay it much attention. But when the hunter walked in—for that’s he was, unmistakably, though Sam couldn’t recall ever seeing his face before—everything else in his field of vision grayed out, all noise dropping to a distant buzz. Sam felt himself freeze, turn to stone in his chair.  
  
A moment ago, Sam hadn’t worried about how he looked, whether or not he fit in. Other days he did, but today had been okay. But the moment the hunter—who was not like Bobby or Pastor Jim, not at all, he was every inch a _Freak Camp_  hunter—came in, Sam knew the game was up.  
  
He had short cropped dark hair, peppered with gray. He was stocky and not as tall as Dean, but his face terrified Sam. The cold, assessing gaze, the casual self-assurance in how he held himself, did not belong to just any hunter. A lifetime of pain had taught Sam to brace himself before that body language, that calculating look. This was one who would recognize what Sam was.  
  
Sam could hope that stillness was enough to escape, to remain unnoticed, but he knew instinctively, in the pit of his stomach, that it was not. It never had been. Hunters always spotted him.  
  
The hunter walked first to the counter, though he didn’t order anything. His sharp gaze swept the room. Sam knew that, though his own eyes were fixed on the floor ahead of him, still as a mouse before a cat.  
  
Then the hunter turned and strode toward him, unhurried but purposeful.  
  
In that awful, last moment, Sam wished he could be the real that Dean had taught him to be. He wished he could leap up, hurl his chair through the window, escape or defend himself with a shard of broken glass. He would not win, but at least he would leave behind evidence of a fight. When Dean returned, he could put the pieces together. He’d be proud of Sam, even though Sam would be long gone.  
  
But there would be no fight. No sign of a struggle. Sam would just disappear, and the other patrons would say he had left voluntarily with a hard-eyed man clad in denim. Why would Dean even bother looking for him?  
  
Then the hunter pulled a chair over to Sam’s table and sat down next to him. Very, very close, so that Sam felt the hot gust of the hunter’s breath on his cheek, and his knee touched Sam’s, and that was the end of Sam’s ability to think anything.  
  
His hands were still resting on the table, curled and empty, dead things. Sam couldn’t feel them.  
  
"You're Winchester's freak, aren't you, boy?" The hunter’s hand settled heavily on Sam’s shoulder, gripping hard, as though he thought Sam had the strength to try to run or leap up. "Still making him happy?"  
  
Sam did not dare to breathe.  
  
"You're looking good, freak. Bet you are making him happy. I bet Winchester’s the happiest fucking freakfucker in the country. We’ve run together a couple times, and he was the best damn hunter I’d ever seen—after his old man, of course. Whaddaya think, is he getting better or worse pounding you every night?”  
  
The hunter’s hand left his shoulder, slipped down his arm and to his lap. Sam tried not to react, not to make a noise, but he couldn’t keep some sound escaping his throat. It was too late, but he still strained for the sound of the Impala.  _Please, Dean, please—come get me one more time…_  
  
"You haven't forgotten you're a monster, have you, boy? You go on giving Winchester a good ride, because the day you fuck up—and you will, that’s the one thing you can count on monsters for—you'll be lucky if he gives you a bullet and doesn't stake you somewhere as wolf-bait. Maybe he’ll drop you right back at camp. Maybe I get to have a go when you get there."  
  
Sam tried to blank out while the hand traveled downward, tried to go somewhere that the hunter couldn't reach him. The hunter couldn’t do any of those things that hunters had done freely at FREACS here, not in a tiny restaurant in front of civilians. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. But the hunter’s soft words rang in his head while he gripped Sam’s groin roughly through his jeans. Sam tried to remember that Dean wouldn't hate him, didn't hate him. That Dean knew these truths already, and had never hurt him. _If it comes down to that, Dean will just shoot you, he wouldn't make you ask more than once._  
  
The hunter’s voice in his ear was a low rasp, too quiet for anyone else in the cafe to hear but loud to Sam, “Bet you beg real nicely, don’t you, Pretty Freak?”  
  
There were things that Dean didn't know, things Sam hadn't told him, hadn’t dared to say. Sam closed his eyes and listened for the Impala. If he could run to Dean fast enough, if they could just get away, then Dean would never have to know.  
  
~  
  
Still angry and a little rattled, Dean turned the Impala into the parking lot behind the little cafe where he’d left Sam, musing that they didn’t know much more now than they had before. John had been here, apparently on a hunt, on a mission. And hunters were assholes. At least Ellen hadn’t explicitly thrown him out—Dean had chosen to walk out when he did—which was something, even if Dean was sure that he was never coming back to the Roadhouse during normal business hours again.  
  
The moment he entered Tina’s, the first (the only) thing he saw was Sam hunched at a table with the hunter who had left the Roadhouse before Dean, sitting close enough that it almost looked like he was going to kiss Sam. Dean’s blood ran cold with an unholy mix of rage and fear. Sam hated being cornered, flinched away from anyone who leaned in too close, but here he wasn’t moving. He sat hunched in on himself, as though he expected the bastard to shove a knife in him any moment.  
  
Dean would have punched the asshole's face in just for touching Sam, but for that  _terror_ in Sam’s shoulders? He was going to do far worse.  
  
Dean moved before either of them saw him, fighting the urge to draw his knife in front of the civilians. Sam, eyes blank and terrified, registered him just as the guy's whispered words became audible to Dean.  
  
"Crusher’s been missing you real bad too. He never shuts up about what you used to do for him—"  
  
Dean grabbed the bastard by the back of the neck and hauled him out of his chair. Impossible not to notice where the guy’s hand had been. And Sam had just  _sat there._  
  
"What the fuck do you think you’re doing?" he asked. Funny how calm his voice sounded, in the last moment before his control snapped.  
  
"Winchester!" the asshole said, eyes wide. "Dude, man, relax. We were just having a chat about the good ol’ —"  
  
Dean aimed two vicious knee kicks, catching him in the abdomen and groin, then shoved him face-first to the floor. The hunter made a high-pitched squealing noise, curling in on himself, and Dean had to think hard about whether he wanted to kick him in the face or drag him outside and gut him. The cafe’s patrons were staring at him, and he could see one of the waitresses, white-faced as she watched, fumble for a telephone. Sam was staring at him, too, but it wasn’t relief in his eyes. There was blank terror, like he didn’t recognize Dean at all.  
  
The guy—Bentham, that was his name—had dragged himself to his feet, one arm curled around his abdomen. The hatred in his eyes made Dean reach for his gun while stepping between the fucker and Sam.  
  
But Bentham didn't make a move, beyond spitting weakly toward Dean's feet, missing his boots. "Enjoy your slut, Winchester. I know a lot of men have. And he begged for it, too. Right, Pretty Freak?"  
  
Dean didn't see Sam's response, wouldn't turn around to see it now.  
  
Before he could make up his mind what to do (what he wanted was to kill the son of a bitch, but they were in public, in front of civilian witnesses, and he wasn’t even sure that Sam would want him to do that when the bastard hunter wasn’t even fighting back), the piece of shit dragged himself out the door. Dean took a step after him, the desire for violence briefly overwhelming any other consideration, but a small sound behind him made him turn.  
  
Sam looked like he was a moment away from losing anything he had eaten that day.  
  
In an instant, Dean was back at his side, reaching for Sam's shoulder. "Sammy—"  
  
Sam jerked away, lifting his shaking hands up to the sides of his face. "Don't," he whispered, eyes closed and breaths sharp and shallow. "Don't, don't, don't."  
  
Dean swallowed and took a half-step back, bringing his hands down. He stared at Sam—hunched in on himself, what was visible of his face a tight mask—and knew he was gone far beyond what Dean could reach with a few words. They needed to leave this place, and fast. "Sam," he said at last, voice low and hopefully not too rough. "Let's go, man. Let's get out of here."  
  
He didn't know if Sam could hear him, if he'd have to touch Sam to get him to move—which would be the opposite of helping right now. But eventually, Sam stood and turned shakily toward the door, head down, arms folded tightly across himself.  
  
Dean had to shove his books into his backpack and take it with him when he followed, because Sam hadn’t even glanced at them as he left. Dean kept enough distance that he could catch Sam if he tried to bolt—hadn't happened yet, but that was something Dean had been afraid of every time Sam got triggered badly—but far enough away that he wouldn't be tempted to touch him, even if he stopped suddenly. Sam remained stiff as he stumbled to the Impala and stopped by the passenger door.  
  
Dean walked to the driver's side automatically, and then he looked at Sam again. Saw his hands clench in his shirt and how he wasn't even looking at the smooth black door of the Impala. Dean swallowed, walked around the car, and tried not to see how Sam backed away from him. Dean opened the door and stood beside it, wishing Sam would look at him, knowing that until they could talk, until that horrible look faded from Sam’s face, there was nothing he could do. "Come on, Sam. Let's go."  
  
Sam got in without letting go of his shirt.  
  
Dean's grip was too tight on the steering wheel as they drove back to the motel, and it took him an effort not to jerk the turns. It was just as hard to keep his words behind his teeth, not to curse himself aloud for ever leaving Sam alone when they were in the same town as the Roadhouse.  
  
But swearing wouldn't do any good now, and definitely wouldn't help Sam. In half an hour they had lost—how many fucking months of progress? How long would it take this time before he could touch him without Sam flinching like he'd been shocked? Fuck, how long before Sam  _looked_ at him again?  
  
And all because they’d been chasing a fucking lead on the deadbeat ghost of his fucking dad.  
  
That Bentham asshole should never have left that restaurant in anything but a stretcher. Or a body bag. That fucker had  _touched_ Sam. And what he'd said,  _enjoy your slut_ , had sounded like bullshit to Dean, something a sadistic fuck would whisper to get a victim softened up—but Sam's reaction wasn't bullshit. Something had triggered him, badly, and while Dean knew the vague outlines of what had happened to Sam and didn’t want to push lest something break, he thought Sam had already broken a little.  
  
He didn't want to think about peeling back another layer of Sam's pain, but Sam couldn’t stay in full-on shutdown mode. God, Dean had hoped he’d never see it again. He would do fucking anything if it meant that Sam would look at him again, trusted him, wouldn’t flinch from him. If Sam would believe that Dean wouldn’t abandon him at a time like this.  
  
Dean kept silent until they were inside their room, door locked and barred, window shades drawn tightly shut. Sam drifted almost without seeming to notice what he was doing until he stood between the second bed and the bathroom: a silent ghost, the wonderful, funny, caring person Dean loved lost within that pale, hunched-over shell waiting for the next blow.  
  
Though Dean could have gladly gone for something in his system significantly stronger than Ellen’s watered beer, Sam was skittish around alcohol at the best of times, and this was not that. Dean filled a little plastic cup with water and took it to him, careful to hold it by the top, leaving enough of the bottom free so Sam could take it without brushing his hand. "Drink," he said, afraid Sam wouldn't move without a verbal prompt.  
  
Sam took it at once, dropping his head back as he drained the cup, dropping his eyes again as he handed the cup back. His eyes never once touched on Dean.  
  
Dean nodded toward the close-set twin beds. "Have a seat, Sam." His tone was quiet—an invitation, not an order.  
  
Sam folded his knees as he sat on the edge of the bed, arms once again hugging his chest and hair hiding his eyes. When he spoke, it was soft and broken, a terrible beaten tone Dean hadn’t heard in over a year. "I'm sorry."  
  
Dean almost flinched. He  _hated_ hearing those words from Sam, and he almost choked on the frustration that threatened to bleed into his voice, his body language. "For what, Sam? It's not your fault that asshole existed."  
  
Sam's shoulders twitched, like he'd taken a hit and didn't want to show it. His throat worked for a moment, but nothing came out.  
  
Dean rubbed his hand across his mouth, pressing hard. He didn't want to do this. He really didn't want to do this, but fuck, he  _had to know._  
  
~  
  
"Tell me." Dean's voice was low and soft, but Sam could not meet his eyes. He could not look up and see the slow anger growing there, accusations he couldn't turn aside because they were true. “Tell me what he was talking about.”  
  
Some days—the best days—Sam had managed to forget that this moment would come. He had dreamed of it countless times, both sleeping and waking, and each time, it had been the End. There was no other outcome possible, no way he would ride shotgun next to Dean in the Impala again after this. But even so, Dean deserved the truth. He had always deserved the truth, but Sam had been too cowardly to offer it. He had always known, though, that when the moment came that Dean asked him for the truth, Sam would not keep it from him.  
  
"I'm sorry." Sam stared at a point just beyond Dean's arm, right hand locked on his left elbow like that would hold him together while everything in him threatened to shake apart. "I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have, I should have held out, I should have waited for you—but it wasn’t for the h-hell of it, I swear, it wasn’t. Only...only when it was important. When Kayla was crying, she  _couldn’t_ stop crying and that would just bring the guards and the smell—”  
  
Sam could feel it again, lying in the cold on the hard cots; the disgusting slough of shifter; and the certain, terrifying knowledge that when the guards arrived, they wouldn’t have mercy on the girl-seeming creature weeping in terror beside him.  
  
"Sam, Sam." Dean was crouched beside him, hand outstretched but not touching. Sam wished, with every particle of his filthy and worthless being, that he could meet and grip those fingers one last time. Ending it with that final touch would be a shocking kindness. "Slow down,” Dean said. He was still looking at Sam (Sam could feel his gaze like a burning heat, though he would not meet it), gazing as though he would never look away. ”What was important?"  
  
Sam swallowed hard. "Blankets. Th-there was only o-one, and it w-wasn't enough in the worst of the c-c-cold,. Extra food, s-sometimes, when it was r-really bad."  
  
Dean stayed very still. On the edge of his vision, Sam saw the revelation move over Dean’s face, into his body language. He was still the way he was when a case slotted into place in his head, when they knew where the killer freak would strike next. If anything, that threatened to choke Sam off even more.  
  
“Sam,” he whispered. “You’re saying that—”  
  
"Yes, Dean, I sucked them off to get  _stuff_." Sam let go of himself and locked his hands on the bedspread on either side of himself, turning his head with his eyes closed and bracing himself for a blow, the words he had dreaded to hear from Dean.  _Fucking whore, this is not what I paid for, some easy piece of ass._  
  
Nothing came. Not a blow, not a word. Instead of relief, Sam's nerves tightened, his fears doubling. Worse than physical abuse, worse than any damning words, would be Dean walking out without a word.  
  
If these were the last moments with the man who was his whole world, Sam couldn't let Dean walk away without one last glimpse. Sam cracked his eyes open.  
  
Dean hunched forward, palms pressed to his forehead. He couldn't look at him.  
  
Sam swallowed, tried to find enough saliva to speak again. No use apologizing—he already had, and Dean wouldn't want to hear it now ( _that was a Rule, only one Sorry a day, but Rules wouldn’t save him now_ ).  
  
Hoarsely, he whispered, "I never let them fuck me." One last bone. Maybe Dean would keep him around long enough for that. One last memory to cherish before whatever happened to him after. Even now, when Dean couldn't stand him, Sam still wanted it. Better Dean than anyone else, always. It wasn’t as though Dean would, could, treat him any worse than Sam deserved.  
  
But the longer Dean  _didn’t_ touch him, didn’t take him, the less and less Sam could hang onto even that fragile hope. He was dirty, used, worthless. Maybe Dean would give him a bullet instead of taking him back to camp. Dean was so good, so kind, Sam prayed for the feel of the barrel tucking up behind his ear, a hand on his shoulder—his last touch—holding Sam down while Dean pulled the trigger. That would be better, so much better, than going back.  
  
When Dean finally looked up, Sam cringed away from the anger in his face. Contained, suppressed, but so much anger that Sam couldn’t even look at it without shaking. Dean’s eyes were red, as though he had been crying, or close to it, and his face was marked white where his hands had pushed indentations into the skin.  
  
When Dean reached for him, Sam flinched instinctively, and then called himself a fucking idiot. He knew that Dean didn’t get off on pain, that if Sam wanted this he would have to make it as good as possible for him or Dean might stop—but Sam hadn’t been able to stop himself. He closed his eyes, tight enough he saw white afterimages, praying that Dean would touch him, wouldn’t be so disgusted that he went to the bathroom for whatever relief he would have gotten from using Sam.  
  
When hesitant fingers touched his shoulder, Sam almost cried in relief. He relaxed into the touch, pressing himself into Dean’s hand, eyes still closed.  
  
He felt the mattress shift as Dean moved to the bed beside him, felt the heat as Dean’s shoulder pushed into his, but he still didn’t look. Any flinch, any sound now, might drive Dean away. Sam had no way to stop himself from reacting to the fear—even though everything depended on it—if he looked up and saw hatred and disgust in Dean’s eyes.  
  
“Sam.” Dean breathed. He sounded frightened, unsteady, un-Deanlike. “Sam, look at me.”  
  
He couldn’t. He couldn’t watch it coming. Couldn’t make himself.  
  
Then he felt Dean’s lips against his throat, and Sam's eyes snapped open. Kisses. He hadn’t thought there would be any more kisses. He hadn’t thought Dean would think him worth that gentle caress of mouth against skin, knowing now what he had done. Sam didn’t even think about Dean’s mouth against his—disgusting, to think that Dean had been so gentle where he’d whored himself to so many others—but just the flick of tongue against jaw made Sam relax, made him ready to push himself closer to Dean’s body. No hands, no questions, just increasing the pressure that Dean had already begun.  
  
Dean whispered in Sam’s ear, “I knew.”  
  
Then Dean’s mouth slipped up and over his, tongue sliding between his lips, and Sam didn’t, couldn’t think. Dean caught his arms before Sam’s abortive move to stop him could even get going, before he did something goddamned stupid, and Sam moaned against him, immediately hard, making little, jerky, involuntary movements with his hips, ready for anything that Dean might want, anything. He’d kissed him again, even though he  _knew_ , even though—  
  
When Dean’s mouth left, Sam tried to follow it, tried to catch him again, but Dean held him back, slid his hand down Sam’s body. Sam stared, not able to compute anything very clearly, not sure what he was seeing in Dean’s face.  
  
“You know what I see when I look at you? What I’ve always seen. You are so fucking strong, and brave, and beautiful,” Dean said. “And I want… Lean back.”  
  
Sam couldn’t process any of what he’d just heard—except the order. He dropped flat on the bed. He would have hit the mattress harder, except Dean’s arm was there guiding him where he wanted him, legs draped over the edge. Sam gripped the covers in both hands to stop himself from moving while Dean undid his jeans fly, hooked his thumbs through the belt loops, and pulled them down.  
  
Sam felt his pulse jump again, beating too fast from terror, and then Dean was back on top of him, kissing his jaw, his mouth, his neck, hands gliding over Sam’s body and occasionally stroking his cock in feather-light touches that didn’t demand, didn’t come close to getting him off, but kept him moving, kept him so damn ready it almost hurt.  
  
Sam knew that Dean was ready too. Ready to take the only thing Sam had to give. But Dean wasn’t flipping him over,  _wasn’t doing it_.  
  
One long draw of Dean’s fingers over his cock head, and Sam’s mind blanked out for a second in the sea of need and fear. Words slipped out before he swallow them back “I have to—“  
  
Dean stopped, wary, and Sam froze, even while his body shook and ached for the touches that had been withdrawn.  
  
~  
  
The words had seemed almost ripped out of Sam’s mouth, ragged and desperate, and Dean froze, terrified that he was hurting him, moving too fast, doing some damn thing wrong again like so often, like he had over and over again when it came to Sam. He just wanted so badly to show Sam that none of it mattered (except for who Dean had to kill, but that would come later), and that Dean wanted him so much in every way: in bed, in life, as long as they could.  
  
He leaned down and kissed Sam’s throat—almost always a safe move—and rested his hands against Sam’s abdomen, feeling the desperate rise and fall of his lungs and diaphragm.  
  
“What, Sam?” he asked. “What do you have to do?”  
  
Silence. Broken, fearful silence. Then Sam choked it out, like a child admitting a pain he didn’t have the words to describe. “Turn over,” Sam said, almost so soft that Dean couldn’t hear.  
  
Dean caught the tail of his rage before it could sweep out of him, burn through everything in his path, because right here, right now, he knew that rage would burn Sam into nothing.  
  
“Not now,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t shake from the effort to contain both lust and wrath. “That’s not what I want from you right now, Sammy. This is what I want.”  
  
He slid his hands around Sam’s waist—still too damn easy—and moved himself down Sam’s body, fitting his shoulders between his legs. Then he kissed Sam, closemouthed, chaste, hard, where his cock rose out of his body.  
  
He was glad he was holding Sam down, or one of them might have gotten hurt when Sam bucked, tried to fight his way upright. “Dean…what are you…you can’t. That’s my job…”  
  
Dean looked up, met Sam’s wild eyes. “Sammy, lie down.”  
  
Sam shook his head. His trembling arms barely supported his shaking upper body, but he didn’t look away. “No, Dean, you can’t, you should, I’m…”  
  
Dean licked him in one long, wide motion—base to head, lips barely making contact with the hot skin—and Sam slammed back down so fast the bed shook, back arching, whimpers and cries coming garbled from his mouth. He mumbled and choked out half-swallowed words, and another scream twisted back the long column of his throat when Dean slid his mouth back down the other side of Sam's shaft.  
  
“No. God. Stop. Dean, please stop.”  
  
Only the ragged edge in Sam’s voice—an edge that was neither fear nor pain—and the hard cock under Dean’s mouth showed that Sam wasn’t actually terrified. Still, Dean couldn’t listen to Sam pleading for him to stop, couldn’t risk making a mistake, when what he wanted more than getting off or getting his mouth on Sam’s cock again was to wipe the agony and emptiness out of his face and his body. Dean pulled his mouth away, sliding his hand over Sam’s shaft instead, and looked to Sam’s unfocused and almost panicked eyes.  
  
“Sam,” Dean said. “You can say those words, and I will stop. I will stop at any time, because I never want to hurt you. But I need you to tell me why.”  
  
Sam clenched his eyes shut, and his hands dragged their way through Dean’s hair like he was looking for something, anything, to hold onto. “You can’t. You shouldn’t. I’m not—“  
  
“No,” Dean said, and kissed him on the thigh, his cheek brushing Sam’s balls. “That isn’t a good reason.”  
  
Another long smooth stroke of tongue over hot, pulsing skin. Another shudder racked Sam’s entire body and sent his hands, trying desperately both to push Dean’s head away and not hurt him, twisting in the air as though fueled by an electric current.  
  
“No, no, stop, you can’t. Don’t, Dean, please…”  
  
Dean rose up so he could keep his thigh against Sam’s groin, grinding steadily, and caught both his writhing hands. They clenched, and Sam looked at him, pupils so wide from arousal that Dean wasn’t even sure he was seeing him.  
  
“Sam.” It was hard to breathe, hard to keep himself steady when he  _wanted_ so much. “Sammy, listen.”  
  
Sam tried. Dean could see the effort he put into focusing on Dean. For a fleeting moment, Dean was proud of himself for getting Sam to that point, so quickly, that fast.  
  
“Sam. I’m here for you. I want this. I want  _you_.” Dean kissed one of Sam’s hands, then the other. They were wrapped around his so tight that he couldn’t quite feel his fingers where the pressure was strongest. “I want your cock in my mouth, and I want you to come, and I want you to know I love you, no matter what happened in Freak Camp.”  
  
Sam whipped his head back and forth wildly. “You're not supposed to do this, not supposed to h-have to. I should—"  
  
“You can tell me to stop anytime. You can tell me that you’re hurting, or you’re not ready, or you want me to lick your balls, or run my lips over your dick, or just stop a second for you to catch your breath. You can say that, Sam, and I’ll stop.” He grinned, more and more distracted by the pressure against his knee. “But I’m not going to stop because you think I shouldn’t be touching you, shouldn’t be making you come, because that is not true.”  
  
“Dean, you—“  
  
Dean squeezed his hands, so tight that maybe Sam would feel it through his tension, and shifted his knee back, his body sliding down Sam’s legs and pinning them to the side of the bed.  
  
“Just hold on, Sam. I’m here.”  
  
And then he slid his lips around Sam’s head and down his shaft in one smooth swallow.  
  
Sam screamed, a long, high wail, his words breaking down, and Dean had to hold tight to his hands and keep pressure on his hips so Sam couldn’t choke him. The pressure of Sam's fingers between his own was a good thing, it gave him something to distract him from his own hardening cock, from the movements Sam's hips made in time to his gasps, and gave him the focus to judge what Sam loved, what pushed him toward panic, and what he couldn’t handle even if it felt good.  
  
Dean sucked hard, doggedly, in time to the half-thrusts and spasming of Sam's hands in his. Inch by inch, he slid his mouth farther down Sam cock, tongue and lips and mouth finding a new way to hold him at every step.  
  
When Sam came, the orgasm rocked his body off the bed, and the sounds coming out of his mouth were halfway between ecstasy and agony. Dean groaned around him even as he swallowed him down, clenching Sam’s hand in his.  
  
Dean withdrew his mouth slowly, lapping around Sam's cock while the aftershocks traveled through both their bodies. When he released Sam's hands, they lay limp, and Dean couldn't quite feel his own fingers.  
  
He slid back up Sam and kissed him on the mouth, the taste of him still on his lips. Sam's face was wet, tear tracks burning their way across his cheeks, and he was sobbing quietly, shoulders shaking, making soft gasping sounds.  
  
Dean leaned over him and wiped his tears away with a thumb, kissed his cheeks, slumped down beside Sam.  
  
"You did so good," Dean said. "I'm so proud of you, Sam. You're so damn hot, and you came for me. I’m a lucky bastard, you hear? I fucking loved tasting you come, Sam, it made me so hot, it made me feel so good, and I’m so glad that I could be the first to give that to you.”  
  
Slowly, Sam's shoulders stilled, his breathing evened out, and he shifted toward Dean, reaching for him like Dean was water in a desert, or a gun in a fight, his only survival and defense. Dean closed his eyes in relief, pulling Sam to him. He could feel tremors still running through Sam, but he rubbed at his shoulders as he continued murmuring reassurances, sure that his tone, if not the words, were getting through. Finally, when he felt Sam's heartbeat return to normal, he tugged him lightly until Sam shifted, letting him pull them up to the pillows with their legs stretched down the bed.  
  
Dean kissed him over his eyelids, then sat up to kick off his jeans and finish tugging Sam’s off. He pulled the blanket free from underneath Sam, who opened his eyes blearily, but helped kick the covers down so Dean could slip in. There, he wrapped his legs around Sam's, tugging him close against him. Sam exhaled against his chest.  
  
Dean knew there was a lot to face tomorrow, that this moment wasn’t the end, but for now, he could rest with Sam in his arms.  
  
~  
  
Sam didn’t sleep, not even after Dean had settled again beside him, his breathing easing into the steady rhythm of deep sleep. Sam lay there, keeping his breathing even and slow so as to not wake Dean, and tried to make sense of what the fuck had just happened.  
  
He couldn’t think of it, couldn’t wrap his head around it. Dean had learned Sam’s biggest, dirtiest secret, and instead of calling him what he was (whore, slut, monster), he had said he loved him, that he was perfect, and he had—  
  
Sam pulled his mind away from that (wet, tight heat, sparks shooting up and down his spine, and  _Dean_ ) lest the spike in his heartrate wake Dean, and breathed carefully. He didn’t know what he thought. Dean shouldn’t have done that, should never have done that, but it had also been one of the most intense experiences of Sam’s life, and what he had  _said_ after… To hear that, after knowing that Dean understood what he had done in the camps, Sam would have walked through fire without hesitation. It was hard, on that scale, to parse how he should feel after feeling so good when he had expected so little.  
  
He laughed at that, perilously close to tears, though from humor, pain, or just stress, Sam couldn’t tell. He understood, now at least, why his mouth had been in such high demand, if the experience was even half as intense when it was a monster doing the deed.  
  
Dean shifted in his sleep, pulling him closer. Sam relaxed, burrowing into his warmth and breathing in the heat and familiarity of him.  
  
He didn’t know where they were going from here. He still felt shaken and halfway to panic thinking of the revelation Dean had just had, of his reaction to it. But beneath that was the knowledge that two of his worst fears (the hunter pinning him to that chair, and confessing the worst to Dean) had come to pass, he was still here, sharing Dean’s bed, and he wasn’t in any pain that didn’t come from his own fear.  
  
Sam had never expected to come through either of those experiences intact in any significant way. Now that he had survived them, he didn’t know where he was going or what waited ahead (what he should fear now) but he knew that something had changed.  
  
Strange and remarkable as it seemed, the future glimmered with real hope now; hope that stretched further than the here and now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler summary of this chapter: Dean finds out that Sam was forced to trade sexual favors in order to survive, and Sam expects him to throw him out/rape him/kill him/not love him anymore. Instead, Dean goes down on Sam, all the while Sam protests because he thinks blowjobs are a demeaning service that he should perform, rather than Dean. Dean promises to stop for any reason except that Sam feels he does not deserve this. Scene has strong dubcon tones, but ends with them and their relationship in a better place. Although Sam is crying.


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to onlythefireborn, sylvia_locust, and firesign10 for excellent feedback. All remaining errors and weirdness are our own. So very much our own.

They left the Roadhouse early the next morning, just after dawn. Dean only slowed down once, swinging the Impala through the McDonald’s drive-thru to get breakfast before they peeled out of town, heading south.  
  
Sam unwrapped and bit into his Egg McMuffin mechanically, without tasting it. He wasn’t hungry, but if he didn’t eat, Dean would think something was wrong. And nothing was exactly _wrong_ , he just needed...time to think.  
  
He had trouble clearly recalling each part of last night: the hunter had caught him, Sam had confessed everything to Dean, and then...what Dean had done after. It didn’t seem possible now, in the Impala’s shotgun seat with a warm and pale white muffin in his hand, that all of those things had happened. None of it made sense. Any way he could figure it, the first two events should not have led to the third.  
  
Sam had learned about cause and effect, action and reaction, the analysis of events and evidence, all under the Director’s hawk eye and ready hand for correction. He could remember each moment from last night, but no matter how he tried to string them together, they didn’t compute. Dean should never have done…that. Not just because of all the obvious reasons of who and what Sam was, but because…because….  
  
Maybe Dean hadn’t understood.  
  
Sam swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry and his stomach twisting. That would be a logical assumption, even if it too didn’t quite fit all the evidence. He considered and then rejected burying the idea. Good as it would be to hold onto Dean, to wrap the slender illusion of safety around himself like a blanket on a too-cold night, he couldn’t bear another waiting period of hiding his shame, counting days of stolen bliss until Dean realized the truth. Better for their relationship and everything to end now, if it was all going to come crashing down, rather than wait another hour of tight-to-the-breaking-point suspense.  
  
“Dean.” His voice rasped in his throat, as though he’d been the one swallowing a dick the night before. He felt Dean’s eyes immediately swing to him. Dean had been watching him all morning, when he thought Sam wasn’t paying attention or wouldn’t see. Sam couldn’t bear to meet his gaze yet.  
  
“Yeah, Sammy?”  
  
If anything, Sam felt sicker still, which was not his usual reaction to hearing Dean use that nickname. There couldn’t be any no way that Dean had understood him the night before. “Did you...I d-don’t think. You heard m-me. Last night.” He was pretty sure he’d been precise, factual, and explicit ( _I sucked them off to get stuff_ ), but that could have been a panic-induced fever-dream. Monsters weren’t reliable, after all.  
  
He heard Dean draw a sharp breath. After a beat, Dean said in a too-even voice, “I heard you, Sam.”  
  
Sam forced himself to swallow, trying to keep the McMuffin down. He wouldn’t be sick here, over the Impala’s seats. “Then you kn-know I’m—”  
  
“I heard that those goddamn sons-of-bitches made you sell yourself to survive,” Dean continued, right over the words Sam had been trying to choke out. ”I got that, Sam. And I hate _them_ for it” —here his voice nearly broke, shaking with anger. Sam flinched from him involuntarily, hunching his shoulders— “but not you. I couldn’t hate you for it. Fuck, Sam, I’d have done the same in your place.”  
  
“No!” Sam’s head jerked up, forgetting himself as he looked at Dean in horror. “You can’t—don’t say—”  
  
“I would have,” Dean said flatly. “In a fucking heartbeat. And I wouldn’t have lasted as long as you—”  
  
“Stop it.” Sam put his hands to either side of his head. “Stop, stop, _please_.” He struggled to breathe normally while Dean remained quiet, thankfully. _Dean didn’t belong in Freak Camp. He would never, never be there, never know. He couldn’t._  
  
After a few minutes, Dean said, “Sam,” and Sam forced his hands away from his ears and turned to look at him. Dean watched him out of the corner of his eye, most of his attention on the road. “I heard you,” he repeated.  
  
He didn’t add anything like “I don’t blame you” or “I forgive you” or “It’s going to be okay,” but Sam heard it anyway, in the steadiness of his voice, and, for the first time, Sam believed in his bones that Dean meant it. Still shaken, but at last believing that the confession hadn’t all been a dream, Sam nodded and turned back to his breakfast. His first muffin and egg had been partially pulverized in his nervous hands, but he’d eaten far worse. Besides, there was a second one for him in the bag.  
  
He’d never once expected forgiveness. It was hard to figure out where to go from here. Still, by the time they’d stopped for lunch in Mound City, Missouri, Sam had the first step for what he had to do.  
  
That action would have to wait for nightfall, and the rest of the plan distracted him all through lunch, while Dean tried to catch his eye and pull him into conversation. Sam felt Dean’s attempt to reclaim “normal,” or what had become normal for them, but he couldn’t lose his jumpiness, the low-level anxious nausea that never quite peaked into sickness. It reminded him of the early months out of Freak Camp when Dean had been _too nice_ to him and Sam couldn’t understand why. Now, the _why_ was less important than the fact that Sam had to make it right. The purpose there, the feeling that he could _do_ something about it now, made him feel better than all Dean’s encouragements had those many months before.  
  
In the motel that night, he waited until Dean emerged from his shower. No moment had felt right earlier, and he understood, better than he once had, how that mattered.  
  
He’d messed it up once before (that sickeningly horrible first night with Dean, first night out of the camp), but that wasn’t going to happen this time.  
  
When Dean stepped out in his boxers and pajama shirt, Sam stood up from the bed. He moved in front of Dean, close enough to feel his body heat, and caught his gaze before leaning in for a kiss.  
  
Dean made a surprised, pleased noise in his throat, his hands immediately finding Sam’s hips. Sam melted into the touch, but didn’t let it distract him. He was in charge, and he had a mission.  
  
With one hand on Dean’s chest, he guided Dean gently backward, to the wall behind him. As he deepened the kiss, he flattened that hand, his thumb tracing Dean’s nipple through his shirt while his other hand squeezed Dean’s hip. He pressed his thigh between Dean’s legs, feeling his cock stiffen. Relief rushed through him (he’d succeeded in the most basic necessity), though the twist in his stomach did not ease.  
  
Sam dropped to his knees, smooth and effortless, like he wasn’t a year out of practice.  
  
He heard Dean’s sharp intake of breath as his hands landed on Sam’s shoulders, but he didn’t push Sam away.  
  
Sam didn’t give him time to second-guess. He palmed Dean’s dick once before rolling down the waistband of his boxers, tugging them down to his ankles in one motion. Then he had Dean’s cock gripped at the base, his hold sure as he popped the head between his lips.  
  
This was familiar, the suck and pull, one hand working him from the base. He could hear Dean’s breathing above him, soft exhale as his fingers tightened on Sam’s shoulders. That was okay. Dean wasn’t pinning him there. Sam could stop, get up at any time, and Dean wouldn’t be upset.  
  
_Maybe he would be a little angry. Anyone would, wouldn’t they, if a slutty little cocktease got them started but didn’t finish?_  
  
No. Stupid and pointless to think that, because Sam wasn’t going to stop. He had no intention of stopping. No reason to stop. He’d never stopped for better reasons before.  
  
This was Dean. Sam had heard him, had _made_ him come dozens of time, and he loved the sound and the feel of Dean’s body as he orgasmed. This was just like that, but different. He wanted Dean moaning under his tongue, under his hands. He had started this ( _you always wanted it, you little whore_ ), and nothing mattered in this moment other than what Sam wanted, and what would make Dean happy.  
  
Then Dean groaned, a guttural and raw noise unlike anything Sam had ever heard from him, but too like other nights on his knees.  
  
Sam couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt a gag reflex without an actual gag in his mouth, but all at once it surged up his throat: every memory of being on his knees, cold concrete or packed dirt digging into his skin, his single-minded focus on the end that meant blankets, food, buying another day to wait for Dean, unless death came for him first, and sometimes he wasn’t sure which he wanted more.  
  
He got his mouth off Dean before his stomach heaved, but it was a fucking close thing.  
  
~  
  
Dean had fantasized about this, no denying that. Not as often as he might have,what with the fucking nightmares that had unrolled from day one, and the glimpses he’d gotten of what Sam had gone through. It was only when they’d started treading, ever so carefully, over the PG line, that Dean had begun to feel less like scum for jacking off to the image of Sam one day going down on him.  
  
All the same, when Sam sank to his knees, the jolt inside Dean had not wholly been fuck yes.  
  
The timing felt wrong. True, Dean had pushed this same envelope just the previous night, trusting an intuition unconnected to his dick, despite all the ways it could have gone wrong. And he’d thought it had paid off, though he’d had plenty of chances to doubt himself today as Sam barely looked at him throughout the drive. He’d seemed more thoughtful than shell-shocked, but it had been enough to leave Dean jittery and trying not to show it, hoping that Sam would come around.  
  
So yeah, this beat his expectations of _coming around_.  
  
He wasn’t about to stop Sam, no way, not after last night. Dean was plenty hypocritical sometimes, but he wouldn’t do that to Sam. He wouldn’t tell him that Dean was the only one who could call the shots when they were ready to ramp up, sex-wise. Instead, he swore to himself that he’d keep an eye on Sam, be ready to pull him up if this went south (in a wrong, not-sexy way).  
  
But maybe all that thinking and planning and promising was setting too lofty of a goal, because from the moment Sam’s lips touched his cock, _holy shit_.  
  
Dean blanked out, brain shorted out on sensation, hands flexing on Sam’s shoulders, and it was _so fucking good_.  
  
All that euphoria, all that _yes_ , came crashing down hard when Sam yanked off of him. Recoiling like he’d been burned, he pulled up in a twisted position a couple feet away, head down with one arm covering his mouth.  
  
It took an effort for Dean to pull his mind away from his dick, from the sudden loss of pressure and warmth. He pulled his boxers up, tucked himself in, and slid down the wall to sit across from Sam. He didn’t trust his legs yet. Sam hadn’t moved.  
  
“Jesus, Sam.” It came out hoarsely, and Dean regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. They sounded like a complaint. “You okay? Jesus. You didn’t have to do that.” He added, “Don’t get me wrong, it started—fucking awesome—but I can wait until you’re actually ready.”  
  
Sam dropped his arm, shaking his head, and pushed himself back to lean against the mattress frame behind him. He placed his palms against his forehead, hiding his face. “I fucking hate it,” he said, so quietly that Dean could barely hear. “I _wanted_...I wanted to, to do that for you. And not j-just to pay y-you back. I wanted to. But I c-can’t get th-them...out of my head.”  
  
Fuck. Dean shifted, reaching out to touch Sam’s bare foot without anything….twinging. He rested his fingers just on his toes, hoping that would be enough contact, that Sam would unbend and look at him again.  
  
“We can take it easy. Like we have been,” he said at last. “You don’t gotta push it. Easy is just fine.” And if his dick disagreed with him on that opinion right this second, his dick could just shut the fuck up.  
  
Sam nodded, but didn’t look at him. He remained slumped where he had fallen, until Dean was comfortable and confident enough to stand and offer a hand.  
  
He felt relief when Sam took it and let himself be pulled up, then at last he looked Dean in the eye, one hand resting against his chest. Sam looked exhausted, but he managed a small smile anyway, and Dean felt sure for the first time all day that they really would be okay.  
  
~*~  
  
The next morning was quiet, like the dawn before a hunt. Sam knew he was fumbling, clumsy even, in their morning rituals (bathroom, clothes, packing), but he didn’t realize how much he was avoiding Dean, even down to eye contact again, until Dean stopped him by the bathroom just by raising one hand in his path.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
Sam drew a short breath and forced his eyes up. Maybe later this week, tomorrow, even later today he would be able to shake this discomfort off and reclaim the illusion of easy confidence that he had held just a couple days ago. But in this moment, he was grateful for those first Rules of a year before. Eye contact. Questions. The ability to say no. He knew that that was what Dean wanted from him, and he would damn well give him everything he had.  
  
Dean looked drawn, like he hadn’t slept all that well either, and a little uneasy. “I don’t know where we are right now, Sammy. But, bottom line, I’m here for you. You’ve got my back and I’ve got yours, because we’re a team, we’re family, and nothing’s gonna change that. So if you wanna go back to PG for a while, get our bearings back after this shitstorm I sailed us into, I’m good with that.”  
  
Sam huffed a laugh, surprising himself. They were one hell of a mess. And though this fact flew in the face of all the rules and expectations he had lived by for sixteen years, Dean still wasn’t angry, wasn’t pushing, wasn’t demanding everything Sam could give, wasn’t throwing him out. He was _too_ good, and that thought left old, nearly forgotten chills crawling up and down his spine. _What would_ make Dean angry? What line could Sam cross that Dean wouldn’t forgive?  
  
He could taste that old toxic fear in his throat, threatening to choke off all his air, even though day by day and hour by hour with Dean, he had begun to believe that that fear might not be based on fact. But it was no less terrifying for all of that.  
  
He had to force his gaze back up. Dean’s eyes were steady but couldn’t hide their concern. “I don’t want to give up what we’ve…” _what we’ve gained, what we’ve earned_ , he wanted to say, “what we do. What we have. B-but m-maybe...play it by ear f-for a couple d-days?” His throat nearly closed up with that last question, and he hated that, hated that old belief that he could never make such a measly request or set anything resembling boundaries.  
  
“Sure, Sam.” Dean already looked happier, his shoulders relaxing. “Yeah, that’s good.”  
  
That in turn eased Sam’s tension and the knots in his throat. And Sam felt himself heat just a little, a small smile on his mouth without even thinking about it. Dean wanted him, and Dean cared so damn much, and that was...well, it was the most wonderful thing that Sam would ever have in his life. He didn’t want to waste it to constant, nerve-fraying fear. “C-could we go to a l-library? N-not this second, but maybe after breakfast, something like that?”  
  
Dean blinked, but said, “Sure!” without hesitation. Sam smiled wider then, relief and happiness dissipating the weight in his chest, and he saw the same feeling reflected back at him in Dean’s face. As though something had reset between them, they turned back to packing their duffels and bags.  
  
Sam knew he needed something concrete to focus on, something he could use to prove his value to himself, if not to Dean. Trying to buy security with old reliable skills had backfired spectacularly last night, but he still had things he could do that wouldn’t carry with them shameful old baggage. Thus, the library.  
  
Dean might not need Sam to prove his worth, but, as Dean had tried to prove to him time and again, his feelings weren’t the only ones that mattered.  
  
*  
  
Dean drove them to the nearest decent-sized town, found its library, and watched Sam promptly bury himself in the microfilm room. Dean figured he needed space, so he wandered the periodicals section, flipping through magazines.  
  
At a quarter to one, Dean gave in and went to find Sam, who was hunched over a machine, a stack of printouts beside him.  
  
“Hey, Sammy.”  
  
Sam jumped away from the eyepiece, staring at him with wide eyes before glancing away, blinking.  
  
Dean fought the urge to touch him (a hand to the shoulder, he wouldn’t have had to think about it a couple days ago) and dropped into a nearby chair instead. “You ready for grub?”  
  
Sam considered the question—again, longer than he would have, longer than he had since the days when questions about food had been painfully difficult for him to process. “Yes,” he said at last, though he sounded more like he’d found the right answer than with any enthusiasm.  
  
Jesus, Dean needed to quit comparing everything to the bad old days or that was all he was going to see. “There’s a sub shop ‘round the corner, if you want to stretch your legs.”  
  
Sam took a second, eyes on the table, before nodding and collecting the papers into his backpack.  
  
Outside, Sam was tense, eyes flicking constantly to track the movements of cars and pedestrians. Dean was no stranger to hyper-vigilance, but it was usually confined to a hunt or hostile territory.  
  
Then he had a lightbulb moment. “Want to get the sandwiches to go, eat ‘em in our room?”  
  
Anyone else would have missed the tiny signs of relief around Sam’s eyes, the loosening of his shoulders. Dean didn’t even need to hear his quiet, “Yeah, that sounds good, Dean,” to know that was what they were going to do.  
  
Back in the room, with the bolt turned and the security chain up, the tension bled out of Sam like a wet shirt squeezed dry. He fiddled with the clock radio to find a 70’s rock station and joined Dean at the table.  
  
They ate subs and chips in comfortable silence. Sam didn’t speak until Dean was balling his wrapper up to try to shoot it into the garbage on the other side of the room. “I think I found a lead.”  
  
Dean missed. “That was what you were doing hitting the books?” It seemed a little early after the week they’d had to start another hunt—then again, no real surprise, since Sammy was the bravest kid he’d ever known. “What’s the case?” He got up to retrieve his garbage for a slam dunk.  
  
Sam took a careful shaky breath. “I think I have a lead on your—Hunter Winchester.”  
  
Dean sat back down. “What kind of lead?”  
  
Sam shifted slightly. He wasn’t meeting Dean’s eyes again. “B-before we left, I talked with Bobby a l-little about him. John. A-about his movements, his habits. There’s n-not a lot of obvious p-patterns when you look at the locations, the hunts, at least not after the fact. B-but I had an idea, and it paid off.” He took out one of the papers he’d brought from the library. “I started checking out papers in the places we know he’s b-been, but several weeks _before_ he arrived.” He spread out the paper and tapped a column.  
  
Dean leaned over, feeling a strange reluctance, almost trepidation. The headline of the short article read: MASS CATTLE DEATHS MYSTIFY RANCHERS.  
  
“You think he’s…” Dean wanted to make a joke about John taking the bull by the horns, or some shit like that, but he couldn’t find it.  
  
Sam understood anyway. “I mean, _he’s_ not. But these...this could be sign of d-demonic activity. It hadn’t occurred to me before to look for what he’s ch-chasing, but when you do...” He took out more printouts. “It’s not always much, and I don’t think that it’s always really something, but he’s definitely following leads. Lots of dead ends, but there’s a pattern I can’t quite put my finger on.” He looked up, eyes wide and scared and determined. “I don’t see it, what he’s following, but I also haven’t been looking. If you want, I could...try. We could g-get ahead of him.” Sam tried to smile, but he looked like the very last thing in the world he wanted to do was get in _front_ of John Winchester on a mission.  
  
And in that moment, with his stomach clenching and threatening to heave everything he’d eaten, Dean realized that _he_ didn’t want to do that either. Didn’t think that he could if they tried.  
  
He took Sam by the hand. Sam blinked, but curled his fingers around Dean’s all the same.  
  
“Thanks,” Dean said at last. “That’s…” He shook his head. “Thanks for looking.”  
  
“You don’t think we should?” Sam asked.  
  
Dean hesitated, and then shook his head.  
  
“Because I’m…” Sam trailed off.  
  
Dean figured he was looking for something along the lines of “likely to freak out if we confront him” or “one of the monsters that he would kill on sight.” If Dean wanted to, he could have said that he didn’t want to go on a hunt so soon because of what had happened with Sam yesterday, because Sam was fragile. Dean could put this on Sam, and Sam wouldn’t thank him for it, but he would accept it without argument.  
  
But Dean knew that the run-in with that hunter had happened because they were looking for John, a man who would be just as likely to shoot them as thank them for following him. Before—obsessed, angry, guilty and afraid—Dean hadn’t stopped to think what they would do if they ever found John, but now he was, and it wasn’t pretty. This hunt could be dangerous for Sam, sure, could bring him more pain like he’d felt this week; but what was worse was that Dean didn’t know if this particular hunt could ever have an ending that he wanted. Especially because he didn’t know what he wanted.  
  
“No,” he said, to the unspoken question, “It’s just...if he’s missing, maybe he doesn’t want to be found, and I don’t know...” _don’t know how this story ends, don’t know what I want, and sure as hell don’t want you hurt chasing this particular ghost._  
  
Dean took a breath. “If we see something, we’ll chase it. If we get a rumor that he’s in trouble someplace in particular...I don’t think I can walk away from that. But right here, right now, when all we’ve got is a hint that he might be chasing something...I can’t. I can’t go down that rabbit hole.”  
  
Obsession ran down the Winchester bloodline, and Dean didn’t want to feed it.  
  
Sam stared at him like he was losing his marbles, and Dean couldn’t blame him. This was pretty much a one-eighty from where he’d been a few days ago.  
  
“But it’s important to you,” Sam said, sounding a little lost.  
  
Dean swallowed and stood, pulling Sam up as he went. “You’re more important.”  
  
Sam moved into his arms like coming home, resting his head on Dean’s shoulder. Dean could feel him trembling slightly. He felt facelessly angry that Sam was shaken because of this, and so damn glad that this kid was in his life: so brave and selfless that Sam had made that offer no matter what it could cost him.  
  
Dean promised himself that this particular demon would cost them as little as possible.  
  
After a long while, when Sam was finally breathing easily in his arms, Dean stepped back and smiled into his eyes (still kinda weird to have to look up, just a little, to meet Sam’s). “We’ll let that particular dog lie, but I wouldn’t say no to getting back on the road, if you’re game for it. Got anything else for us, hotshot?”  
  
Sam’s smile was slow, but it grew gradually into a grin. “I might,” he said. “I had a couple other articles marked.”  
  
“Great,” Dean said. That was exactly what they needed. The last few days had been a hell of a roller coaster for them both, but he was finally sure they had come out somewhere better, their feet planted firmer than before. For now they would go back to what they did best: saving people, hunting things. They could figure the rest out as they went.


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art credit: All hail quickreaver, the giver of most beautiful art! Thank you so, so much, our story is forever blessed because of it.
> 
> Beta credit: Thank you so much to onlythefireborn, sylvia_locust, and firesign10 for excellent feedback. All remaining errors and weirdness are our own. So very much our own.
> 
> OKAY, this is a chapter like we've never done before! It's in a whole new style, and you'll see months fly by much quicker than they've ever passed before. Enjoy!

**September 2000  
Walker, Minnesota**  
  
As it turned out, krakens (even ones in random lakes in northern Minnesota) are huge octopuses. Huge, six-eyed octopuses with squinty red eyes, mild acid on their tentacles. The creatures had been eating local livestock and had been spotted by a couple of local children who almost ended up as the next meal. Krakens had an uncanny ability to crawl up out of the water when they wanted to—for example, to eat a couple of hunters (and the Impala, plus some of the local townsfolk who wouldn’t take “There’s something really dangerous and you should get the hell out of here” for an answer).  
  
Exhausted afterward, with no civilian casualties and only mild acid burns between them, Dean sagged down next to Sam beside a boathouse near where the krakens had emerged. For all that Dean had been “kraken” jokes all week—like how he and Sam had to make sure they were “well-armed”—he didn’t really feel like laughing after they had calamari’d those eight-armed bastards.  
  
Sam leaned into him, eyes a little unfocused. He’d taken a bad blow to the head early in the fight, and Dean would guess concussion, but he was a little distracted by his own right wrist, which hurt like a mother and at the very least was sprained.  
  
“You know this was your idea,” Sam said.  
  
Dean wrapped his arm around him, sprain be damned. “Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah,” Sam confirmed. “You...you found the newspaper clipping and got us here. I feel—” he coughed weakly and spat out a little water—probably left over from when the bigger one (most likely the female) had tried to drag them under the waves. “I feel like you _suckered_ me into it.”  
  
Dean blinked at Sam. Sam blinked back, the start of a smile twisting his mouth.  
  
That was the worst pun and the best thing Dean had heard all day.  
  
When the emergency crew arrived, summoned by the local farmers who had narrowly missed being digested by the local kraken population, Dean and Sam were wrapped around each other, laughing like fools, surrounded by the decapitated and dismembered corpses of two giant octopus-creatures.  
  
~*~  
  
**October 2000  
Tiffin, Ohio**  
  
Off Highway 224, they cleaned up a phantom panther (which had turned out to be more phantom than mysterious animal, some cross between a ghost and a giant cat predator) that had been picking off people’s pets. The hunt was swift and smooth, except for the unpleasant surprise that the creature might have had offspring. They decided to camp out in a local town to make sure that there wasn’t any evidence of what Dean called “nightmare kittens from hell.”  
  
The day they were leaving to sweep the neighboring towns for any new reports, Sam made a stop at the motel lobby desk while Dean headed to the breakfast room.  
  
The girl behind the desk this morning looked a lot younger than the woman that had checked them in a couple of days ago, not far from Sam’s own age. She had a soft round face and brown hair in a loose braid. She fiddled with the end of it as Sam approached.  
  
“Do you have any regional newspapers?” he asked. The local news sources tended to have better hints of any recent monster activity.  
  
Her eyes widened as she nodded and reached below the desk to pull out a thin newspaper. “Sure, we’ve got the  _Advertiser-Tribune_. It’s a daily. Might be able to find a copy of the _Fostoria Review Times_ too, if you want.” She slid the paper across the counter to him, but her hand lingered on it. “How’s your stay been so far? You sleep all right?”  
  
“Fine, thanks.” Sam reached for the paper, but she didn’t let go. Her eyes were on his face with a tentative, hopeful expression. He wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but it made him nervous.  
  
“I guess you’re just passing through—been on the road long?”  
  
“Just a couple days,” Sam said. It was his usual nice, non-committal response.  
  
“You traveling with your brother?” Her tone was courteous, delivered offhand the way people sometimes did, even though they had no real right to or interest in the information.  
  
“Yeah, I am.” That too was often the easiest answer, especially when strangers suggested it first. People tended to dismiss them then as something ordinary and uninteresting, allowing Sam and Dean to fade into the background like so much scenery.  
  
“Well, there’s not much to keep you here in Tiffin,” she said, in a sudden frank rush. “Just Richie’s old hamburger diner, he does the best onion rings and milkshakes in Ohio. Oh, and there’s the Indian Maiden Head north of town.” She paused, then smiled wider at him, unmistakably hopeful now. “It’s not much, but might be worth swinging by before you head out of town. I get off in a couple hours, I could show it to you, if you don’t mind hanging around.”  
  
Baffled, Sam was about to make an excuse about needing to hit the road, when he heard a cough behind him. He turned and saw Dean leaning against the doorway, grinning at him. “Not hungry, Sammy?”  
  
“Dean,” he said in relief. “Um—” He turned back to the girl behind the counter. “Thanks, but I think we’ve got to get going.”  
  
“Of course,” she said, drooping. “Safe travels.” She returned to picking at the end of her braid.  
  
Uncertain and a little uneasy, Sam took the paper and retreated to Dean, who smirked at him and fell into step as they entered the breakfast room.  
  
“I don’t know what she wanted,” Sam muttered to him, as they filled the hotel’s styrofoam bowls with cereal and milk.  
  
“Dude,” Dean said, as though Sam ought to know _exactly_ what that had been about. Sam tensed, mentally flipping through his internal file of social interactions. Complicated, often contradictory, and always exhausting, interacting with rea—with other people was still something that he struggled with, no matter how carefully he analyzed past experiences.  
  
Dean waited until they sat down, facing each other over cereal, bagels, coffee, and juice, before he said, “She was flirting with you.”  
  
Sam stared at him.  
  
“She thought you were a serious babe,” Dean went on, smiling like he found it amusing, but he didn’t sound like he was joking. “Can’t say I’m surprised, since she’s got eyes. And she’s probably stuck in high school with a lot of pimply losers who don’t know how to use deodorant. So yeah, damn straight she wanted to take you out around town—”  
  
“Okay, stop.” Sam raised a hand, palm out. “Stop. I get it, but that’s not funny.”  
  
Dean cocked an eyebrow. “What’s not funny?”  
  
“That. That whole—idea.” Sam gestured vaguely with his spoon before stabbing it into his cereal, a little harder than he’d meant to. He stopped to wipe up milk droplets with his napkin.  
  
“I’m not teasing you,” Dean said quietly, earnest in a way that made Sam look him in the face again. He’d heard that tone before, but usually it was about life and death and monsters and how Sam _wasn’t_ one. Not a tone he had expected to hear today.  
  
Anger rose inside Sam, a furious impotence seizing his chest for reasons that he didn’t want to look at too closely. “No,” he snapped. “You just think that because—” He broke off, biting his lip.  
  
Dean let out a scoffing laugh. “Because what? You think I’m the only one on the planet who’s got eyes to see how hot you are?”  
  
“ _Stop it_ ,” Sam snapped, then looked out the window, breathing in slowly through his nose and forcing his hands to relax on the table, where they had been twisting and clenching, as though bound.  
  
He heard Dean exhale, the chair creak. “Hey. Talk to me.”  
  
With an effort, Sam returned his gaze to the table, closer to Dean, as he tried to put his swarm of feelings, memories, and half-formed thoughts into words. “Pretty,” he said. “The word you’re looking for is ‘pretty.’”  
  
For a moment, it was silent between them. Then Dean said hoarsely, “Fuck no, Sam. I mean—”  
  
“I never wanted that,” Sam said, low and fast, right over Dean. “I never wanted to be one of those—a siren type. I don’t want that.” _Bad enough to be a lure for hunters, prey for the guards. But to unconsciously make a civilian drop her guard, offer to go somewhere alone with me?_ He struggled enough with Dean’s attraction—more than that: with how Dean said he didn’t want anyone else now, just Sam, and how could that be right?—even though it was the foundation for the best thing in his life. But to have a similar effect on people who had no experience, no defenses against the supernatural? Sam didn’t want that. He didn’t want that at all.  
  
Dean hissed. “Jesus, Sam. That’s not what this is. That’s not what you are. I know they—those fuckers put a lot of fucked-up ideas in your head, but you’re no more a siren than I am.”  
  
Sam snorted. _Then what the hell was it?_ But he finally met Dean’s eyes, trying for a smile. Dean returned it, just as weak.  
  
“Look, chicks aren’t gonna stop mooning over you anytime soon, especially now you’re—taller and stuff. I always thought flirting was pretty awesome—and more—before, but even if you’re not interested, there’s ways to let ‘em down easy.”  
  
“I could just say I’ve got a boyfriend, not a brother,” Sam offered.  
  
Dean extended his foot under the table to catch Sam’s ankle. “Yeah, I like that idea.”

  
  


 

by quickreaver

  
~*~  
  
**Halloween 2000  
Nowhere-in-Particular, USA**  
  
Sam watched Dean as the anniversary approached, and Dean watched the jack o’ lanterns and the creepy plastic skeletons appear on porches and in windows, with steadily increasing...focus.  
  
Sam could watch the calendar as well as anyone, and he started planning, quietly. He mentally categorized every bar they entered, and some they just drove past, in the latest tiny town. He listed them as quiet, neutral, dangerous, or unknown. He didn’t know where they would be when the actual date arrived, but he thought it was a good habit to form. That wariness might mean the difference between Dean getting quietly wasted and letting Sam drive them safely back to the hotel at 3 a.m.—or them getting out bloody because some asshole brought up the White House Massacre.  
  
They didn't talk about the date. Sam figured they didn’t need to. Dean clearly knew it was coming up, and as long as Sam braced himself for the bars or the bottle (with a hunt as a distant third possibility), he figured they would be okay.  
  
On Halloween itself, Dean did...nothing. As the evening rolled around, he stayed in the hotel room, staring down at his hands, mouth pinched. Sure, maybe a Tuesday wasn’t the biggest drinking night or partying night, but it still seemed strange to Sam. Through the window, he watched clusters of children in brightly colored costumes braving the streets. They were dressed as superheroes, athletes, pop-culture characters, and not like true freaks, which was a relief.  
  
The next day was the anniversary of Mary Winchester’s death. He and Dean went out for pancakes around eleven a.m. Just after noon was early to go to a bar, but Sam still expected it. Instead, Dean bought a six-pack of beer from a local convenience store, and they returned to the motel.  
  
Dean drank two beers before he half-heartedly offered one to Sam.  
  
Sam shook his head. “Are we g-going out later?”  
  
Dean stared at him for a second, then took another swig. “Nah. I thought we’d stay in, see what’s on the boob tube.” He put his beer down and fumbled with the TV guide. “Hey, _Die Hard_ ’s on.” His grin was a shadow of its usual self. “You never seen that one, have you, Sammy? Always thought of it as more of a Christmas movie than Halloween, but that might be just fine.”  
  
_Die Hard_ was interesting, Sam thought, especially with Dean’s commentary on how jumping through windows was harder than it looked, and what a great slimeball Hans Gruber was. The best part was lying next to him, feeling Dean’s warm and slow breathing while he did nothing more destructive than finish off the rest of the beer. When the credits rolled and Dean said they would stick around for the sequel (not as good, but apparently still awesome), Sam got up to use the bathroom.  
  
When he came back, Dean was cradling the last empty bottle of beer in his hands.  
  
“Y-you want to go out?” Sam asked. It was, after all, November first.  
  
Dean shook his head. His smile was twisted, like someone had punched him in the mouth and his jaw didn’t feel quite right. “No, Sam, I don’t. You know what day it is, don’t you?” When Sam nodded, Dean looked back down at the bottle. “Winchester tradition for remembering involves a hell of a lot of alcohol. And a lot of forgetting. Which is kind of funny, you know?”  
  
Sam nodded, even though he didn’t really know. It seemed strange, but he didn’t have much to compare it to.  
  
“I was four when she died,” Dean continued, “but she was the best thing in the world. I wish you could have met her, Sam. I wish I could...I wish I could have gotten to know her, you know? Hey, movie’s starting. And looks like  _Die Hard With a Vengeance_ is on afterward.”  
  
Sam slipped into the bed beside him and rested his head on Dean’s shoulder.  
  
He would like to learn more about Mary Winchester. Hunter though she may have been, she was half of Dean, and worth remembering as more than a casualty of some decades-old massacre.  
  
~*~  
  
**November 2000  
Hazard, Kentucky**  
  
“Baseball,” Sam said, after a beat. “That phrase, ‘batter up,’ it’s related to baseball.”  
  
Dean looked up with a grin from the toolbox he was inventorying. “Hole in one, Sammy.”  
  
“And what you used right there, that's a—golf metaphor."  
  
"Bingo.”  
  
“And bingo is...”  
  
Dean paused to gesture with a wrench. “The actual game bingo. Doesn't count as a sport. It's a board game for old people, where you match up squares on a board until you get a line in a row, and then you shout, 'Bingo!' It's very exciting if you’re seventy, highlight of the week.”  
  
Sam stayed quiet for a second, thinking. “I’ll focus on board games once I get the main sports down. Though I already know a few.” He quirked a smile at Dean, then switched the channel from the cooking competition he had been watching (which used a surprising number of sports-related comments) to ESPN. “Basketball. Because of the baskets. Like baseball has bases. But the players use their hands in football, so it makes more sense that the rest of the world calls soccer football. But football—the NFL— is the biggest sport in America, right? That’s what most guys are shouting about in the bars on Sundays?”  
  
“Yep, that's the big one.” Asshole sports junkies had nearly given Sam a heart attack a couple times, months ago, until Dean had learned to steer clear of sports bars on game nights.  
  
“And their biggest game is the Super Bowl. Which comes with hot wings and all those commercials that are a big deal."  
  
“That sums it up. You got sports down cold.”  
  
Sam wasn't satisfied, though. “Baseball has the World Series, even though it's not international. Basketball has the...finals. And no one cares about soccer, because America isn't very good at it. And hockey belongs to the Canadians, so no one cares about it, either.”  
  
Dean shrugged. “Matters where you go. I handled a case 'round Michigan once that had some vengeful hockey stick-wielding spirits.”  
  
“Okay, but apart from the states close to Canada.”  
  
“Yeah, no one gives much of a shit.”  
  
“Like tennis. And golf is for people in suits. Though they don't wear suits, they have those visors and collared shirts that they tuck into their shorts. And they drive in carts, and sometimes other people carry their bags.”  
  
“Definitely not a real sport,” Dean agreed. “Seriously, dude, you've aced sports.”  
  
“No." Sam sat up on the bed. “No, there's more I need to get down. Because if I'm watching a basketball game and I say, 'Awesome, they made a goal,' people are going to look at me like I'm a—like I’m from Mars, aren't they?”  
  
Dean looked up, not liking where that sentence had almost ended. "We don't watch basketball, Sam.”  
  
“But if we _did_. If we needed to, for a cover story. Like that case you had.” He turned back to the TV, face intent. “Football has touchdowns. Baseball, home runs. Soccer has goals, they scream it sometimes for a long time. With basketball you score points, and you make—hoops?”  
  
“Baskets,” Dean said.  
  
“Right, the baskets again. Duh. Nothing but net."  
  
“Swish,” Dean agreed.  
  
Sam lay belly down on the bed, watching the TV with his chin propped on his hands, intent on the commentator's discussion of the point guard's knee injury.  
  
~*~  
  
**December 2000  
Boulder, Colorado**  
  
They stopped in Boulder during a lull between cases because being within a hundred miles felt like they were right in the neighborhood. Maybe too it was the start of a tradition, returning to home base for the holidays.  
  
The Boulder library had an excellent resource section on the supernatural, but it wasn’t great for finding a current case. Sam got sucked into a treatise on unicorns (apparently certain breeds were vicious, and something less than fictional, at least if that source was to be believed) while Dean halfheartedly flipped through the latest _National Enquirer_ , looking for something that might need the talents of the Winchesters.  
  
For once, Sam wasn’t in a hurry. Their last hunt had been brutal: a pair of vampires hunting among the homeless population of Denver. One of them had managed to knock Dean into a wall before the Winchesters could take off their heads. Dean was still limping a little, though nothing was broken.  
  
They’d found the vampires in the middle of draining their final victim. One male had looked up and bared his teeth at them, long and red and vicious in the dim light. In that instant, staring into those angry red eyes, Sam had felt himself snap back to the camp yard, about to go hand-to-hand with the muzzled vamp called Celler.  
  
When the vamp charged, Sam had remembered the dart gun loaded with dead man’s blood in time to shoot the bastard through the head, but that second of hesitation had given the female an opening to strike Dean. Dean had deflected the blow enough to avoid breaking his leg, but the aftermath had left Sam shaky with vivid images of what the vampire could have done if she’d knocked Dean down.  
  
Sam worried a lot about blending in with reals, about knowing enough to pass, but there were days that monsters reminded him too much of the past as well.  
  
Everything considered, it was good to curl up in a library with Dean in sight, to research quietly with nothing urgent over their heads, while the world kept turning.  
  
Dean broke the silence. “Hey, Sammy. So, I don’t know that this is really a hunt, but this mag has an interview with a guy in Tulsa that says the ghost of Elvis has risen from the grave to threaten him. Want to check it out? Might be fun.”  
  
Sam closed his book. “Elvis...was a singer, right?”  
  
“King of Rock and Roll,” Dean agreed. “We’ll have to brush up on the way down. If this _is_ a hunt, I don’t want you tripped up because of a ‘You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog’ reference.”  
  
“Definitely not,” Sam said. “Let’s go.”  
  
~*~  
  
**January 2001  
Las Cruces, New Mexico**  
  
Super Bowl Sunday arrived on a crisp, bright day, and Sam and Dean were ready for it. They joined the crowds raiding the local Albertsons, picking up chips, dip, wings, soda, veggie sticks for Sam, and an entire apple pie.  
  
They took the bags of food back to their motel and settled in for kickoff. Sam was primed, even excited, to see the Big Game after his months of study, but Dean still couldn’t see the point. The Super Bowl, more than normal football, was so mind-numbingly _slow_ , with breaks every fifteen seconds for the damn commercials. He was used to faster-paced action, the kind with less padding and fewer rules.  
  
So he ate his half of the snacks (maybe a couple more), then tugged Sam close. Maybe he could distract Sam with something more interesting than the replays and analysis of how the quarterback was falling short of expectations.  
  
He started with a line of slow, leisurely kisses starting at Sam’s shoulder, then climbing up his neck. Sam shivered, twisting under Dean’s hand on his bare hip under his shirt, though not to get away.  
  
“So,” Dean murmured into Sam’s throat, followed by another kiss, right at his jawline. “What’s the score?”  
  
Sam huffed out a half-laugh, half-sigh of exasperation. “Dean.”  
  
“C’mon, what’s the score?” He blew lightly into Sam’s ear, and Sam jumped, his hand twisting into Dean’s.  
  
“The, ah. Ravens got a touchdown. Seven to zero.”  
  
“Yeah? Good for them.” Dean grabbed at Sam’s flexing hand, lifted it to his mouth and brushed his lips and teeth over Sam’s knuckles. “So, you think the defense’s got a chance in hell?”  
  
Sam turned and kissed him.  
  
Dean would never, ever get over Sam taking initiative. It was still the best damn surprise in the world, lighting up his nerves, heating him from the inside, surging blood to his cock.  
  
He tried not to let that last reaction take over, as much as he wanted to toss Sam back onto the bed, tear off their clothes, and grind into him skin-to-skin. He should—would—go slow, take his time listening to Sam’s body at every step.  
  
Sam was sending very, very good signals right now. He pressed into the kiss, one hand around the back of Dean’s neck (fingers slipping under his shirt), making hungry, pleased noises in his throat.  
  
Fuck football. Dean fumbled blindly with the remote until he found the mute button, then pulled Sam back onto the bed with him and set to work on their jeans, undoing the flies and kicking off the denim. Sam tugged off Dean’s shirt, followed by his own, tossing them to the floor. His eyes were bright and intent, and he pulled Dean down on top of him, hooking his leg around Dean’s.  
  
“Fuck, Sammy,” Dean breathed, dropping to his elbows and losing himself in the heat of their skin and grind of their bodies. Even with their boxers still on, they moved together so fucking well.  
  
Sam pushed his hips up as he carded his hands through Dean’s hair, pulling him in for another kiss. Sammy unafraid to express desire was always a heady rush for Dean. He could so easily have abandoned control, given in to how his body wanted to grind against Sam until they both came. But that wasn’t everything he wanted just now.  
  
Reluctantly, he broke off the kiss to pull back onto his knees, no more than a few inches above Sam’s body. Sam blinked at him, confused, on the edge of unhappy at the change. Dean didn’t leave him enough time to realize that feeling. Instead, he caught Sam’s nipple between his first two fingers, a sure distraction. He trailed his other hand down Sam’s belly, over the waistband of his boxers, and down the arc of his straining cock.  
  
The reward was immediate. Sam gasped, throwing his head back as his eyes fluttered shut.  
  
“Yeah, baby?” Dean traced his fingertips back up, stopping to rub the outline of the head. “This good for you? You all right with me touching you, watching you come?”  
  
“Yes, yes, fuck, Dean, ple—” He bit off the rest of the word, writhing on the sheets, and Dean didn’t push it further, didn’t want (never wanted) to hear Sam beg like Dean might actually leave him hanging. He tugged Sam’s boxers down just enough to take his cock in hand, and bent close over him to kiss his mouth and neck. Sam wrapped his arms around Dean’s back, moaning and gasping _Dean, Dean_ , turning his head to bite down on Dean’s shoulder, but he found Dean’s mouth again to smother his cry as he came.  
  
Dean stretched out beside him, keeping one hand on Sam’s softening cock as Sam’s breathing slowed. Sam shifted to look at him, eyes glinting, and he rolled atop Dean in one smooth motion, pushing him flat on his back.  
  
“Whoa, hey there.” Dean grinned up at him.  
  
“Hi.” Sam rested his palms on Dean’s chest, on either side of the amulet. He looked a little uncertain about what to do next, but Dean didn’t mind letting him take his time. His cock ached, but he had Sam’s weight on it, and he didn’t stop himself from rocking his hips up for a little relief.  
  
Sam stretched down over him, burying his face against Dean’s neck as his hands slid down Dean’s arms, until he wound their fingers together. Dean groaned and turned his head to find Sam’s mouth, but Sam was working his way down, his mouth tracing a path from Dean’s collarbone to his sternum.  
  
A couple of inches above Dean’s navel, Sam raised his head and said, “I want to try again.”  
  
Dean swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry and heart pounding twice as fast. What was he supposed to say— _no_? He managed, “If you really wanna, Sam. Fuck. But you can, y’know, stop. Anytime.”  
  
“I want to try,” Sam repeated, and he sounded sure. His gaze was steady.  
  
Dean closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing and keeping still, even as he felt Sam’s warm breath over his cock.  
  
For the second time, Sam’s lips closed around the head of Dean’s cock. He circled it with his tongue, then started down the shaft, his hand working it from the base. All the while, Sam kept his left hand locked on Dean’s, their fingers intertwined.  
  
Sam’s movements were steady and sure; after half a minute, Dean realized he had to breathe, had to allow himself to relax into it. Maybe this time wouldn’t go wrong. Maybe he could actually let himself come.  
  
As the possibility occurred to him, he realized he was on the cusp of coming, shallow breaths coming hard and fast, nerves lighting up all the way to his toes. He cracked open his eyes, and the sight of Sam working him made Dean’s heart stutter. Sam gripped Dean’s hand to the side so tight that he could hardly feel his fingers, and that was okay, that was awesome. Sam was keeping himself grounded. He wanted to do this, he wanted to make Dean come with his mouth, and oh fuck Dean didn’t know how Sam wanted to finish—  
  
“Fuck, Sammy, I’m gonna—”  
  
But Sam stayed right there, with an extra squeeze of his hand to reassure Dean, and then the climax hit him like the Ravens lineman sacking the quarterback, and for several seconds he saw nothing at all.  
  
When he came back down, he found Sam resting his cheek on Dean’s abdomen, watching him. He was smiling.  
  
Then Dean could grin too, helplessly wide. “Holy shit, Sammy.”  
  
“I figured it out.” Sam sounded pleased with himself. “I just had to find a new angle. This works.”  
  
“Fuck yeah, it works. C’mere.” Dean tugged him up the bed, to where Sam laid his head on the pillow beside him.  
  
Dean felt fucking exhilarated, which was pretty standard after a mind-blowing orgasm, but underneath that an uneasy feeling nagged at him. This kind of sex had gone spectacularly wrong every time before they’d danced close to the edge, and he had to be sure Sam hadn’t done it for the wrong reasons, like out of some fucked-up sense of _duty_. Though Dean didn’t have a fucking clue how he’d fix it after the fact, if that was Sam’s headspace.  
  
"You know you don't owe me anything, Sam, right?"  
  
"I know,” Sam said, with a readiness that eased the worry in Dean’s chest. “That's not why I wanted to do it. I want…to be able to do things. Good things, I mean. And good sex,” he added, with a small smile of amazement. “I don't want to be held back by what—what happened. The past."  
  
Dean exhaled as the last knot of worry loosened.  
  
Then Sam glanced at the TV, still on mute. “They’re _still_ playing?” he said incredulously, and Dean laughed, sliding his arm under Sam’s shoulders to pull him close.  
  
“Yeah, but we’re having more fun.”  
  
~*~  
  
**February 2001  
District of Columbia**  
  
Alice got the call at two-thirty in the morning. Her life being what it was, she’d only hit her mattress an hour before that. She and some of the higher-ranking members of the family (Jonah, Gwen, a handful of others) had been in a conference call with another government agency until late, and then she had typed up her notes and tomorrow’s to-do list before closing her eyes.  
  
“This is the ASC hunters’ emergency service line, you’ve reached Alice Campbell,” she said, enunciating the best she could into the phone. _If this was Derrick Yolkov again, looking for a free tow of his piece-of-shit car—_  
  
“We need damage control,” the male voice at the other end snapped. “And we needed it three hours ago.” He rattled off an address about an hour away from her location, closing with “If the cameras get here before you do, we’re all fucked.” And then the line went dead.  
  
Significantly more awake, but still yawning and blurry, Alice pulled on jeans, a clean shirt, and coat, then hit the road. This crap was her least favorite part of the job, and she really needed to prioritize hiring trusted assistants to be on call for the emergency service line. She wished she had time to swing by an all-night convenience store for an extra-large coffee, but it hadn’t sounded like an option.  
  
Her destination was a quaint suburban two-story, unremarkable except for the worried hunter pacing the porch, watching the road like he expected the hounds of hell.  
  
“You Alice Campbell?” he demanded, as soon as she was close enough he wouldn't have to shout. He was somewhere in his late thirties, early forties, with weather-beaten skin and long claw scars down his neck partially hidden by his slightly-too-long hair. He stared her in the face, but didn’t quite meet her eyes. She wondered what kind of freak had taught him that particular habit.  
  
“You called me,” she said coolly. “What do I call you?”  
  
“If you ask me, you should put these assholes down,” he said—ignoring her question, and with a few more hours of sleep, Alice would have bristled and pushed until she got her answer. But for all that experienced hunters were hard to read, she could see something distraught in this man’s face. “But you probably won't. Look, I hunt because—well, everyone's got his reasons, and I've got mine. It ain't a pleasure, it's a necessity: us versus them. But this—” He pulled himself together, took a ragged breath. “This ain't that.”  
  
“Right,” Alice said. “I'll take care of it.” Or if she didn't have the clout—it still happened sometimes, though less and less often—she'd make sure that Jonah knew, and he would take care of the problem.  
  
“You do that,” he said, and stepped aside.  
  
The door was unlocked (it had been kicked open), and the rooms beyond smelled like blood and death.  
Boot prints tracked through the bloodspray in the entryway.  
  
“The wife was coming to answer the door,” the hunter said flatly. He stood just behind and to the left of Alice, about two paces back. _Watching my non-dominant hand_ , she thought, _and out of easy striking range_. “Jackson shot her.”  
  
Alice swallowed. She didn’t have a weak stomach, but his tone...she didn’t like what she heard underneath it.  
  
She followed the bloody footprints, and he followed her.  
  
The main room of the first floor was a combined living and dining room, with the kitchen visible over an island. Each section of the house was delineated by different flooring: tile kitchen, pale living room carpet, massive throw-rug in the dining room.  
  
From the entrance, Alice could see three bodies. A woman (presumably the same one who had been shot through the door), a man, and a teen who had been halfway into some kind of transformation when he died. By the way the bodies were clumped together, the man had probably gone down trying to protect him.  
  
Two hunters were digging through shelves and cupboards. One tossed books casually onto the floor after shaking them out, and the other was opening the kitchen drawers, occasionally dumping a tray of utensils or a pile of plates. It looked like they were tossing the place for the damn family silver.  
  
“What the hell happened here,” Alice said, her voice loud. It did not shake, did not reflect her growing horror.  
  
One of the hunters jerked and went for the knife at his hip. His eyes flickered from her, to the hunter behind her, and then back to her.  
  
“Who’re you?” he asked testily. “Max, what the hell you doing? Who is this bitch?”  
  
“Excuse you,” Alice said, cold fury clenching her teeth together. It was easy to focus her disgust and fear and horror into anger. “My name is Alice Campbell, and I represent ASC headquarters. I work directly with Director Campbell. I asked you a question, and you had better answer me without bullshit if you want to keep your hunting license another hour.” _And your kneecaps intact_ , she didn’t add.  
  
The hunter glanced over the destruction and death sprawled over what had once been a very nice home. “It was a mess from start to finish. Sorry about that.” He didn’t sound very sorry. “Sometimes the fucking freaklovers get in the way and it just goes south, you know?” He picked up a knife from the counter area, tested its weight, and dropped it in a bag at his feet that she hadn’t noticed before. “You didn’t have to take the trouble to come down. Max there didn’t have to call you. We were gonna take care of it.”  
  
Two dead civvies, one dead freak, and a couple of hunters robbing the place after. If she hadn’t known what was going on, Alice would have called it a triple-homicide robbery. Even knowing, she could feel the rage building in her chest that she usually reserved only for politicians who slashed veterans’ care, or for stupid assholes who didn’t believe in monsters. “How exactly were you going to take care of it?”  
  
“Torch the place,” he answered.  
  
She could feel her face tightening. That was a logical solution to an awful mess, and she didn’t like how it sounded like one he had taken before. “Who saw you in town?” she asked brusquely. “Who did you talk to?” She continued with all the questions that she was paid to ask, figuring out how deep a hole these disgraces had dug for themselves, and gradually working out how to get their sorry asses out of it again. Who would remember they had been sniffing around this family? Had they left their prints anywhere? Had they used weapons that could be traced back to them or the ASC?  
  
Jackson, the first one to talk and the ringleader, did most of the talking. They’d had solid leads before they arrived in town, and hadn’t (as far as they remembered) asked any pointed questions that might make them stick in someone’s mind. Alice would have taken that with a grain of salt, but Max agreed, and she was inclined to accept his assessment.  
  
After grilling them for another fifteen minutes and a careful fingerprint sweep of the outer doors, she fixed them with a look that had made tougher men than these do what she said. “Put all this shit back where you found it,” she said, indicating their loot bags, “and drag the bodies over to the couch. Don’t take your gloves off until you’re a hundred miles away. This is never going to look like an accident, but we can make folks ask the wrong questions, and if we’re lucky, no one will ever know we were here.”  
  
Freaks died (that was pretty much the point of the ASC, no matter what the C technically stood for), and sometimes there was collateral damage, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to be easy, and casual, and a good excuse to rob a house before you lit it on fire.  
  
She was going to get these thugs (“hunters” was too damn good a word for them) out of the field and somewhere they couldn’t take human life so damned casually. Alice wasn’t sure she had the authority to force that and make it stick, but she could talk to the Director. He might need some kind of frame to justify the step, but she could help him put together something about bad publicity and dead civilians and make it work. If he were here, in this house with a slaughtered family and two shitbags profiting from it, he would be as outraged as she was. But for all her advances in the family business, Alice wasn’t yet as effective as he was. He could take care of this problem without breaking a sweat.  
  
“This doesn’t happen again,” she repeated. “Do you know what would have happened if the press got here before I did? Can you imagine?” It was hard not to shout.  
  
“Never happened before, did it?” Jackson said with a sneer.  
  
An hour later, Alice Campbell drove away from that town, the glow of the burning house a distant haze in the rearview mirror. She stopped for that coffee as the first tentative edges of dawn began to creep over the horizon. Espresso cradled in one hand, she walked to the edge of the deserted parking lot before calling Jonah’s personal number with her cell.  
  
He answered on the third ring. “Director Campbell.” He sounded as alert as though he’d been up and working for an hour already, which of course he had been.  
  
“Good morning, sir,” she said. “There are a couple of incompetents we need out of the field and somewhere their stupidity can’t do us any damage. ASAP.”  
  
A month later, Alice was reassured to see on the ASC intranet an employee ID photo of Jackson wearing a FREACS guard’s uniform and a pinched expression. Much as she had wanted to see both of those hunters get a bullet to someplace that would hurt like a bitch, at least at FREACS she knew they wouldn’t be a continued threat.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to whereupon, onlythefireborn, sylvia_locust, and firesign10 for excellent feedback. All remaining errors and weirdness are our own. So very much our own.

Bobby’s personal phone rang just as he was about to sit down to a dinner of ham sandwiches and beans. With a groan, he debated letting it go to voicemail. Telemarketers liked to call that damn line this time of night, but it might also be some asshole green-as-little-apples hunter doing something that would get him bled out if he didn’t get Bobby’s help. Probably no one Bobby would miss anyway.  
  
Still, he picked up the phone on the fourth ring. Sucker that he was, he always did. “Singer.”  
  
“Bobby!” Dean Winchester did not sound like he was bleeding out. That was good for Bobby’s heart, though it didn’t improve his chances of eating supper while it was warm.  
  
“Dean. Whatcha need?”  
  
“Hey, can’t I call just to check in? Don’t want you going stir-crazy with no one to talk to.”  
  
Usually, the boys called either once every other month—or five times a week when they ran into a tricky hunt. A call tonight was unusual but not improbable. “I was about to have a nice conversation with my dinner, actually. If you just want to chit-chat, call back tomorrow.” Bobby started to replace the receiver— if the Winchesters really wanted to talk, they would call back after calling him an asshole a couple times.  
  
“Hey, Bobby.” That was Sam, his voice hoarser than usual. Bobby stopped, the phone a couple inches from his ear. “We’re sorry to b-bother you—this will only take a minute.”  
  
“Remember telling me about that spirit that shows up in Rapid City only once a year, at the first spring thaw?” Dean asked.  
  
“Yeah, you told me you’d take care of it.”  
  
“Yup, that’s why we’re here, been staking it out all night every night for the last week. Only thing is, Sam’s coming down with something.”  
  
“It’s just a cold,” Sam said, and he was definitely congested. “But I don’t want to pass it on to Dean right before this thing strikes.”  
  
“He wanted me to leave him behind at some other motel, and I told him fat chance,” Dean said. Bobby could hear the eye roll. “But he won’t let up about being quarantined. So I was wondering if I can bring him to your place instead. Just for a few days.”  
  
“I won’t be in your way,” Sam said hurriedly, his voice a low rasp. “It’s just a cold, I can take care of myself. You won’t need to do anything—”  
  
“Like hell,” Dean broke in. “Bobby had goddamn better keep an eye on you—”  
  
“—I can keep to myself—”  
  
“—and make sure you’re drinking enough because you _know_ you forget.”  
  
“He doesn’t _have_ to,” Sam argued. Bobby was pleased to hear the stubbornness in his voice, even over something so simple (and stupid, for Winchesters) as whether or not the kid needed someone to watch him when he was sick.  
  
“Uh-huh,” Dean said, skepticism and fondness pretty evenly balanced. “Bobby, I’d really appreciate it if you let him stay. You up for that?”  
  
“‘Course I am,” Bobby said. “Not the first time I’ve had a sick Winchester on my hands. You know I’m not much of a nursemaid, but you boys always have a bed here to crash on. I’ll make sure he gets his liquids.”  
  
“Thanks, Bobby.” The relief was clear in Dean’s voice. “See, Sammy? I told you he’d be fine with it.”  
  
“How far out are you guys?” Bobby asked.  
  
“We’re not going anywhere tonight. Gotta get our beauty rest. But we’ll see you before lunchtime tomorrow. Speaking of food, anything you want us to pick up?”  
  
~*~  
  
Dean and Sam arrived the next day, hauling in bags of groceries. Well, Dean was hauling. Sam had some bags, but he had to stop frequently to blow his nose or cough. The food they piled on the counter was far more than the list Bobby had read off, and more than he had expected them to bring, even with Sam sick. His meager counter space filled up with cans of soup, loaves of white bread, and about a year’s supply of cough drops and other over-the-counter meds.  
  
“This is everything I’ll need.” Sam coughed into his elbow. “You won’t need to do anything for me.” He took his duffel bag into the spare bedroom, and Dean turned on Bobby, his eyes glinting.  
  
“Don’t let him shut himself in his room all day. Or say he’s not hungry. Sometimes he’s really not hungry, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t eat something, right? Feed a cold and all that. If he tells you he’s fine but he won’t look at you, then he’s not. And don’t let him clean everything. It’s like, a habit. I tell him he’s supposed to be resting, but that doesn’t seem to help.”  
  
“You want to write all that down?” Bobby popped the top off a beer and offered it to Dean. He took it, huffing out a breath while Bobby grabbed another one for himself.  
  
“Hell, maybe.” Dean took a long pull on the bottle. “I’ll call every night, but you gotta let me know if he starts acting funny. Sometimes, when he’s sick—” Dean hesitated. “He falls back on the old rules. It feels safer.”  
  
“Right.” Bobby took a swallow of his own drink, buying a little time before answering. Finally he said, “We’ll manage. So, tell me about the stakeout in Rapid City.”  
  
They settled in the living room while Dean went over the details of the case, comparing his and Sam’s notes with Bobby’s. Sam reappeared eventually and half-fell onto the couch beside Dean. He looked half asleep or exhausted, his head lolling back toward Dean’s shoulder, his fingers curling over the hem of Dean’s shirt.  
  
Bobby and Dean’s conversation carried on at a good clip, but the sensation of time slipping past hovered just beyond the talk of recent monsters hunted or law enforcement personnel narrowly avoided. Finally, with the sun dipping low in the sky, Bobby brought up the obvious. “Dean, don’t you need to get back to Rapid City?”  
  
Dean winced, looking at his watch. His other hand found Sam’s. Sam woke with what was almost a full-body flinch, until he realized who had touched him. Then his hand wrapped around Dean’s as well.  
  
“You’re still here?” Sam said, voice rough and sleep-fogged. “I thought you—”  
  
“Yeah, Sam,” Dean said, his voice gentle, a hint of tension below the surface. “I’m just heading out.”  
  
Bobby went to his library. His ongoing research project could always use a few more minutes of attention, plus there were a couple neutralized artifacts that he had been meaning to put away. He didn’t need to be in the room as those boys said goodbye. He wasn’t sure if Sam and Dean had been apart so much as a night since Dean had gotten the kid out of FREACS.  
  
Soft voices and silence filled several long minutes, until Dean called, “I’ll be in touch, Bobby.”  
  
Bobby put down his book and moved back into the living room. Dean stood by the door, jangling his keys. “Safe driving, safe hunting. We’ll see you in a couple of days, long as you don’t do anything boneheaded.”  
  
Dean offered Bobby a tight smile, but his eyes stayed on Sam, who hadn’t gotten up from the sofa but was twisted around to watch him.  
  
Dean leaned down abruptly to kiss him. Sam turned his head at the last moment, muttering something about germs, so Dean’s lips just touched his cheek. Dean stepped back, mouth twisting. With a final nod, he pushed through the front door and hurried down the porch steps to the Impala.  
  
Sam rose to his knees on the sofa to watch through the window. The Impala backed up slowly, swung around the driveway, and drove out of the yard. Sam remained watching until the Impala vanished from view. Then he slid back down to his seat, staying slumped there for a minute before his head twitched up to glance at Bobby. He didn’t seem afraid, which was a relief, but his eyes were brighter than they should have been.  
  
“He’ll be back before you know it,” Bobby said, with all the offhand confidence he could put into the words. “Dean was stamping out ghosts when he was in junior high, he could do it in his sleep.”  
  
Sam nodded. “Thank you for letting me stay.”  
  
“No sweat.”  
  
Sam managed a ghost of a smile and dragged himself up to head back into the guest room. Bobby let him go.  
  
~*~  
  
Bobby got the first taste of what Dean had warned him about that night as dinnertime approached. Right as Bobby was weighing meal options, his cell phone buzzed with a new text. Bobby felt no surprise reading Dean’s message: _DO NOT LET SAM SHUT HIMSELF AWAY TO DIE_.  
  
“Hey, Sam? You ready to eat?” he called through the bedroom door.  
  
Sam’s answer was muffled. “Thanks, Bobby, but I’m not really hungry.”  
  
Bobby rolled his eyes to his ceiling. “Come on out and have a few bites anyway. Dean’ll kick my ass if he finds out I’ve been letting you skip meals.”  
  
Sam opened the door a moment later. “I don’t think Dean would,” he said seriously, but he joined Bobby in the kitchen. “I’ll try.”  
  
The kid clearly felt crappy. He walked like an old...well, like Bobby on a day when every mended bone ached, and he struggled with every breath. He ducked his face into his elbow every minute to cough. Bobby didn’t push conversation, just made sure Sam got down a helping of spaghetti before washing his dish in the sink and retreating to his room.  
  
~*~  
  
Sam slept fitfully after dinner. He couldn’t seem to find a comfortable position that would let him breathe without effort. He wasn’t sure if that was only because of sickness or also due to worry for Dean and the strangeness of being left behind. The strangeness of _not hunting_.  
  
He was awake when Dean called just after nine, as he’d promised.  
  
“Hey, Sammy.” Dean’s voice in his ear—soft and gentle, as though he had sat beside him on the bed, ready to sleep—sent an unexpected pang through Sam’s chest that had nothing to do with the congestion.  
  
“Dean.” Sam coughed, then took a sip of Sprite from the can he’d left on the nightstand after dinner. “How was the drive?”  
  
“Fine. Great. Awesome.” Dean went quiet for a long minute, just enough for Sam to feel sharp worry prick under his breastbone. Then Dean exhaled loudly into the phone. “Okay, it was lonely as fuck,” he admitted. “Felt wrong, leaving you behind. I’d forgotten—” He broke off.  
  
Sam swallowed, the ache in his throat abruptly worse. “I’m fine here. Bobby’s being really nice, you know how he is. We just had dinner with spaghetti and meatballs. Though Bobby said it was technically angel hair, which is a type of pasta, and not spaghetti. He wanted me at the table even though I’m covered in germs.” He coughed, turning his mouth from the phone.  
  
“‘Course,” Dean muttered. “Yeah, I know you’ll be all right there. Safest place in the goddamn U.S. of A. Now I just gotta remember the trick of a one-man hunt.”  
  
“You said it wouldn’t be a problem,” Sam snapped, gentleness gone from his voice. His fingers dug into the sheets of the too-empty bed  
  
“And it won’t be,” Dean said, soothing. “There’s nothing easier than this sort of ghost, it’s what they send kiddie hunters in training to wipe out. Just keep expecting to see you riding shotgun, is all. Now I gotta pass the whole night by myself, which sucks more than I remember, let me tell you.”  
  
“I could keep talking. Help you stay awake,” Sam offered.  
  
“Better not. You need your beauty sleep if you’re gonna shake that cold.”  
  
Sam took in a shaky breath, feeling it rasp in his lungs and throat. “I can sleep during the day, like you are. Like we had been.” Maybe that would be easier, if he didn’t have to be awake when it was light enough to see how empty the room was of Dean’s things.  
  
“Thanks, Sammy. But even a ghost’s got ears. I better keep both hands free.”  
  
“Okay.” Sam swallowed again. “You’ll call me in the morning, when you get back to the motel?”  
  
“Sure thing, Sammy. Should be around eight. You just plug the phone in and get some sleep.”  
  
Without warning, tears stung Sam’s eyes. Hearing those words without Dean’s presence beside him, ready to pull him close, felt unbearable. He missed Dean now as much as he ever had, even inside the walls of Freak Camp. “It’ll be hard,” he choked out. “Without you.”  
  
“Aw, Sammy.” Dean voice was rough and smothered, too . “Don’t do that. This was your idea.”  
  
“It’s the best solution,” Sam said, fighting for conviction. “But I still miss you.”  
  
“Yeah. Me too. These spooks better show their ugly faces so I can get back there to my hero’s welcome.”  
  
Sam huffed a laugh. “I hope they do.”  
  
For a minute, the only sound on the line was breathing and the occasional rustle as Dean shifted. Sam gripped the phone hard enough for his knuckles to ache and tried to will himself to end the call. He couldn’t.  
  
“Hey, Sammy?”  
  
“Yeah, Dean?”  
  
“Nothin’. Just. Don’t go just yet, okay?”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
~*~  
  
The second day went much the same as the first. Apart from meals, Sam kept out of sight and didn’t make a peep. Part of that, Bobby figured, was shyness or nerves, but it was also clear that any effort to talk triggered a fit of coughing that left Sam worn out and wincing. Bobby tried to keep his attempts at conversation to yes-or-no questions geared at figuring out what Sam wanted to eat.  
  
Just past two a.m., the proximity alarm went off. The high-pitched, obnoxious beeping meant that a car or something larger (he had different alarms for folks trying to make it over the fence) had crossed into his driveway. Bobby swung himself out of bed, grabbed the shotgun he kept strapped to the bedframe, and stepped to his window while maintaining cover. From there he could see the headlights stop and then slowly back out of the driveway before swinging away down the road, presumably the way they had come.  
  
Swearing softly to himself, but without much heat, about wannabe outdoorsmen getting lost in _his_ damn backyard, Bobby replaced the gun (though he kept a knife on him just in case) before shuffling down the hall.  
  
He shut off the alarm before starting down his stairs. He needed a glass of water, and if Sam were up, Bobby would let him know it had been a false alarm.  
  
He flicked on the kitchen light, filled a water glass, and took a long swig. When he turned to the guest bedroom, a jolt went through him when he saw the door ajar. Except for when Sam came out for meals, or when Bobby checked on him, Sam had kept it closed.  
  
More cautious now, Bobby rapped on the door with his knuckles. “You up, Sam?”  
  
No answer.  
  
One hand on his knife, Bobby pushed the door open a few more inches, enough to glance inside. The bedcovers were thrown back, but there was no sign of Sam.  
  
Frowning, Bobby moved back into the living room. “Sam?” Still no answer. With a few quick strides, he confirmed that the office was also empty.  
  
He hadn’t heard Sam come upstairs. Could he have gone outside? Was that car—no. Hell no, it couldn’t have.  
  
Bobby did another sweep of the first floor, checking the corners and bathroom. “Sam?” All was silent and still.  
  
Bobby tried to imagine explaining to Dean that he’d lost Sam. _Balls_.  
  
“Sam?” Louder now, he moved to one of the last shut doors on the ground floor, his hall closet. He pulled it open, and there, huddled on the floor between his boots and a box of scarves and mittens that Bobby never seemed to get to his storage room, was Sam.  
  
Sam blinked up at him. The light was dim, but Bobby thought his eyes looked fever-bright. “Hi, Bobby. This is a nice closet. It’s comfortable.”  
  
“Idjit, no it’s not,” Bobby said, with exasperation and relief. He relaxed his guard and extended his hand. He wasn’t sure if Sam would take it, but after a moment, Sam reached up and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.  
  
“Don’t worry about the alarm. Just a car turning around. Why didn’t you answer when I called?”  
  
“Wasn’t sure it was you,” Sam muttered. “Voices sometimes lie.”  
  
Bobby sighed. “Yeah, I suppose they do. You need to silver me, kid?”  
  
Sam shook his head, mouth quirking. “If you’re a shifter, I’m probably a-already in trouble.” Then he ducked his head to his shoulder to cough, which continued all the way to his room.  
  
Bobby stopped at the threshold as Sam stumbled in and sat on the edge of his bed, gulping a drink from his bedside table before hunching over, elbows on his knees.  
  
Bobby hesitated, not sure if he should just skedaddle to let Sam rest, or if there was something he could still do to help. Sam glanced up. “I—I hope Dean will be okay.” The words were quiet. Bobby figured that was as close as Sam would come to admitting he missed him.  
  
“He’s got more brains than he used to,” Bobby told him. “After all the knuckleheaded, asinine things I’ve seen him bully through, wisecracking the whole time—don’t worry about it. He’s got more reason to be careful now. He’ll come back.”  
  
Sam nodded, and Bobby closed the door. As he climbed the stairs back to his bed, he briefly considered calling Dean. It was possible that beyond getting-Sam-to-eat and stopping-Sam-from-doing-household-chores-while-sick-as-a-dog, Bobby should have gotten advice on what to do when Sam was at the crawling-into-closets stage.  
  
Not yet, he decided. Bobby didn’t need to distract Dean on a hunt, not while Sam clearly was unafraid of him and didn’t object to being removed from the closets. They were still getting by.  
  
~*~  
  
Bobby’s first clue that Sam was taking a turn for the worse came when he didn’t appear for breakfast on the third day. After knocking on his door, Bobby heard prolonged coughing, and there was another long pause before the door cracked open. Sam’s haggard face appeared, half-hidden in the dark of the room, one arm in a baggy sleeve half obscuring his face.  
  
“Could you—” He turned to cough into his elbow. “Just leave—the food out after you’re done, I’ll get it then. I should probably—stay quarantined.”  
  
Bobby frowned at him. “If you’re feeling worse, you’d better move out to the sofa. I’ll bring you something on the TV tray. From there I’ll be able to see if you start ringing death’s doorbell, and we need to haul ass for a hospital.”  
  
Sam shook his head. Even in the bad light, he looked extremely pale. “Can’t go,” he rasped. “Dean has my papers.”  
  
Bobby absorbed that for a minute. “Well. Come on out into the living room anyway.”  
  
Sam took up reluctant residence on the sofa, huddling under his quilt. He ate and drank what Bobby brought him, thanked him (Bobby assumed it was thanks; it came out somewhat garbled, on account of Sam keeping his mouth under the blanket the whole time), and then slept fitfully for the rest of the morning.  
  
Just after a lunch Bobby didn’t bother waking him for (he figured the chicken noodle soup could wait, as the kid was actually sleeping soundly for once), Sam bolted upright on the sofa, startling Bobby in his office where he was crunching some numbers on income versus the price of bullets.  
  
Sam’s eyes were wide, staring straight ahead. “I made a mistake.” He spoke clearly, though not loudly. Bobby couldn’t be sure Sam meant him to hear or respond. He was about to get up, offer soup, maybe ask the kid about the mistake, when Sam threw the blankets back and scrambled off the sofa to dash toward his guest room, shouting, “I have to go!”  
  
“What—” Bewildered, Bobby got to his feet and followed Sam to his room, then nearly ran into him as he reappeared, hurtling toward him.  
  
“Bobby, I made a mistake.” Sam’s cheeks flushed feverishly while his whole body radiated tense, urgent dismay. “I—I miscalculated, but it may not be too late. I have to go. Please, can I please borrow a car?” He started coughing, and kept it just in his sleeve, the other arm wrapped around a hastily-packed bag.  
  
“Whoa.” Bobby lifted both hands, palms out. He moved so that if Sam tried for the door without an explanation, Bobby would be able to snag him before he made it to the yard (and wouldn’t _that_ be fun for both of them). “Slow down for a second, kid, and tell me what’s going on.”  
  
“I messed up,” Sam said, anguish barely held in check behind his tight words and tense shoulders. “This whole situation, everything. I made a promise, a deal, and I need to go to Dean. Bobby, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do this, I swear.” His voice cracked.  
  
“Sam.” Bobby barely stopped himself from grabbing Sam’s shoulders. “Sam, I need you to sit down, breathe, and tell me what this is about. I’ll help however I can, but I need to make sense of it.”  
  
Sam half sat, half collapsed onto the sofa, hunching forward with anxious misery. He looked ready to bolt. Bobby took the armchair next to the sofa, sitting forward himself, wondering if he’d still be able to catch Sam if he made a break for it. Kid might be sick as a dog, but he was also damn fast.  
  
Sam spoke flatly. “I just now realized—I was wrong, I don’t think Dean is s-safer without me. I thought he was, I swear. Better off without me w-when I’m im-impaired. But we’ve been hunting for almost two years, and now he doesn’t have backup. If he dies, that’ll be my fault, same as if I didn’t stop the freak in time. That’s why I’ve got to go.”  
  
Bobby was still trying to process that when Sam drew in a shaky breath and looked up at him. “I can function like this, Bobby. I can. I’m not that sick.” He turned to cough into his arm once, hard, and then visibly stopped and drew himself up straight. Bobby wasn’t sure whether to be horrified or impressed. “Even me sick is better than him being alone right now. I made a promise, and I _have to keep him alive_.” Sam’s hands were shaking, even as he clenched them together. “I swore I wouldn’t be a liability or make him weaker, and I thought—” His posture collapsed as he dropped his forehead into his hands, digging his fingers into his hair. “I couldn’t be with him when I was sick, but now, if something takes him down or just hurts him bad enough he can’t drive or get to a hospital—that’s _my fault_.”  
  
Bobby drew a slow breath. What a bloody minefield. “Hey, Sam. Sam.” He waited until Sam lifted his head, revealing his overbright eyes. “The biggest danger to Dean at the moment is that you’re about to give yourself a stroke. He might not survive getting that news. I hear what you’re saying, and it makes a sort of sense, but you’re selling him way short. Okay? I’ve tracked his hunting skills since before his voice cracked, and I know his blind spots. You two’ve been hunting together for a couple years now, but that doesn’t mean Dean’s clean forgotten how to survive going solo. Before you go off half-cocked and three-fourths dead, and get both of you killed, you should give him a call. Yeah, maybe he needs to be reminded to watch his damn fool back, but he’s not going to be able to keep his head in the game worrying about _you_ either. And whether or not you think he should, Dean will worry about you. So don’t be a total idjit about it.”  
  
Sam absorbed that, looking shaken, but also like he was thinking clearer for the first time in the last several panic-stricken minutes.  
  
“I mean it,” Bobby said. “Go on, call him now. And if you still think he’s in danger, I’ll drive you myself.” He’d do it, too, because with Sam coughing up his lungs and Dean frantic about Sam, someone would have to watch their backs, and Bobby didn’t exactly know of any other volunteers.  
  
Sam hesitated. “He’s probably asleep. I shouldn’t...” He flushed and looked down at the floor. His hands were still shaking, but at least he was still. At least he was _thinking_ and not panicking.  
  
“Call and talk to him,” Bobby said firmly. “I can’t let you keep worrying and then do some fool thing like driving off in the middle of the night. Dean would rip me a new one when you showed up at his motel halfway to death’s door.”  
  
Sam slowly picked up his cell phone off the table. “You don’t think… he won’t be… angry? He won’t, will he?”  
  
Bobby didn’t think Sam was actually talking to him at that moment, but he shook his head anyway. “Hell no. I think that he’d rather you called than you worry yourself to death. And if you hear something you don’t like, just tell me. What I said before still goes. I’ll drive you myself if you think that idjit needs us there.”  
  
Sam nodded to Bobby, short and quick, and then took the cell phone into his bedroom.  
  
Bobby kept an ear tuned from his office for a good hour afterward. He could hear a little murmuring from the room at first, but that dropped out after a while. Sam didn’t reappear and Bobby didn’t hear any windows open for a getaway. Satisfied that Sam wasn’t going to try to make a break for it tonight, he slowly returned to his daily routine, wondering if that routine would survive ‘til dinner.  
  
~*~  
  
Worse than the coughing, the weakness, the stuffed-up nose, the struggle to breathe, the feeling of fucking _uselessness_ , was the low-level terror that Sam felt when he was sick. Intellectually, he got it. He’d been reading up on these things, and it was pretty easy to spot the disconnect. He _knew_ , in his head, that Dean would not dump him over a cough, but that didn’t really matter to his gut. And any trapped thing knows that when energy runs to empty and panic takes over, there’s not much else running the show but the gut.  
  
Dropping the phone to the bed after Dean had said goodnight, Sam stared up at the ceiling. Even over the rasping of his own breath, he could hear Bobby moving in the other room, maybe thinking about checking up on him.  
  
It would have been a fucking stupid thing to try to leave this house while he was like this. What would he have been able to do on the hunt with Dean—distract the ghosts with his coughing and rasping, hope that he would be able to outrun them?  
  
But panic had grabbed him by the throat, as hard as any guard ever had, and dragged him to the door. The conviction that Dean would die out there without him (and that Sam had been wrong while Dean’s father had been right: it would be Sam's mistake would get Dean killed) was stronger even than the shaking in his legs, in his hands.  
  
Now, in the quiet of Bobby’s guest room, having spoken to Dean (Sam had fucking woken him up, so that Dean was groggy and concerned on the other end), Sam realized again that he was such a fucking mess. If he had gone back to Dean, he would have just fucked everything up for him. He didn’t know why Dean should ever come back for him. He couldn’t do a fucking thing right now, and he wasn’t handling that well.  
  
It wasn’t safe to be vulnerable. In the camp, that was as good as offering your neck to a vamp, offering your mouth to a hunter: there was no way it wouldn’t be taken, no way that you could get back what you had lost.  
  
Sam was safe here, as much as any hunter could be. Bobby was… good, and Dean would be fine, and he _would_ come back because Dean had always come back for Sam. Even if it had taken almost too fucking long that last time. _It would be fine._  
  
Bobby knocked softly on the door, and then opened it before Sam had quite realized that he should have said something in response. Bobby didn’t come in, but he looked at Sam, eyes dark with concern. That made Sam all the more uncomfortable because he couldn’t feel it deserved, not right now. He pushed himself up until he was propped against the headboard.  
  
“How was he?” Bobby asked.  
  
Sam scraped up a smile. It must have looked as bad as it felt, because the furrow between Bobby’s eyes only deepened. “Fine. I woke him up, but he’s fine.” He tried to laugh, and though it sounded like a bird dying in a car engine, it must have at least been better than the smile, because Bobby’s stance relaxed a little.  
  
“How you doing?” he asked. “You hungry? Thirsty?”  
  
What Sam wanted was to curl up somewhere very dark and very secret where no one would find him until he could breathe again and push the old panic back to where it usually lived. He doubted that Bobby would let him do that. Bobby had already removed him from his closet once.  
  
“I don’t think I can eat,” he admitted. “But maybe some juice?”  
  
He had to keep going. He had to keep up his strength and beat this thing, so that he could get back out there with Dean. Because in the end, that was the only thing that would make him all right again: being where he belonged, where he wanted to be, at Dean’s side.  
  
Bobby looked reassured, maybe because Sam had actually asked for something. “Sure, Sam, I’ll grab that.”  
  
Sam thought he should follow him, should go with him to the kitchen and save him the trip back, but he wasn’t sure his legs would hold him, and that would be worse. He sagged sideways into the bed. In the aftermath of the terror that Dean wouldn’t survive, that there might be too many ghosts, or that he would forget to watch the side that Sam always watched, Sam could feel his brief burst of energy draining away.  
  
Bobby couldn’t have been gone more than a few minutes, but by the time he returned, Sam could barely keep his eyes open to drink half the juice. Then he sank back into fitful, exhausted sleep.  
  
He was just awake enough to hear the door shut when Bobby closed it on his way out.  
  
~*~  
  
The proximity alarm went off for the second night in a row. This time, it wasn't a false alert.  
  
Bobby saw the headlights of a pickup closing in on his house, and he didn’t waste a second hauling ass out of his room and down the hall to the stairs. There was only one kind of visitor who would come in the night.  
  
But like the previous night, Sam was already up. As Bobby reached the stairs, he met Sam hurtling up, hauling his duffel bag up with him.  
  
“Bobby,” he gasped, his voice hitching in panic.  
  
“I know, kid, I know.” Bobby grasped his shoulder in a quick squeeze, then released him. “Just head to my room and keep breathing, I’ll take care of it.”  
  
Sam tore down the hall. Bobby descended the rest of the stairs and turned on the lights, checking the guest room to make sure the door was closed. Sam had already cleared the living room of all signs of his presence.  
  
The headlights had come to a stop, washing his porch in brilliant halogen glare. Bobby picked up his shotgun from beside the door and waited.  
  
The truck’s doors opened, and three men got out, one helping another as he staggered. They were little more than shadows behind the headlights.  
  
“You up, Singer?” one called.  
  
“You made enough noise coming in,” he answered through the screen door. “Who’s there?”  
  
“Roy Davis, here, and Gene Lewis and Bucky Walsh with me. We had a run-in with a couple of vamps outside Sioux City, could use a space to patch up. Maybe a drink?”  
  
Bobby grunted. He’d check them, but there was no good way to turn them away. “Come on up.”  
  
“Bucky’s bleeding already,” Davis said, grinning at Bobby as he reached the porch’s illumination. He had blood on his teeth.  
  
Bobby stood back, watching his wards as the men crossed the threshold, then checking them against the basics (silver, bronze, a couple of charms he had). Everything came up clean, so he went for his first-aid kit and the cheap whiskey stash while they settled in the living room.  
  
Lewis was staggering between his two buddies, loopy with what was most likely a concussion, as Walsh kept smacking him upside the head with his non-bandaged arm to keep him awake.  
  
Bobby let Davis pour out the shots while he checked Lewis’ eyes (definitely a concussion) and cleaned and stitched up Walsh’s arm. He listened to the meandering story of their hunt, which they’d basically stumbled into and escaped by the skin of their teeth.  
  
“Did you take them out or not?” Bobby cut in at last.  
  
Davis shrugged. “Walsh definitely took the head off the first one, and I’m pretty sure I got the last one in the head, but it was already in the trees.”  
  
Bobby sighed. “Okay. Well, there’s a motel five miles down the road that’s always got some empty beds.”  
  
Walsh stared at him, then let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Are you fucking serious? You can’t let us pass out on your couch for a few hours?”  
  
“You ain’t paying, and this ain’t a motel,” Bobby said.  
  
“Since when?” Lewis exclaimed. His eyes weren’t quite focusing, but he still managed to put a hell of a lot of indignation in his voice.  
  
“Since _always_ ,” Bobby snapped.  
  
The tension in the room ratcheted up, like a rubber band stretched thin between them. They all knew it could snap, but no one was quite sure who would feel the sting. Bobby breathed carefully and calculated his odds. These men were tired, one concussed and another down to one working arm. It was also three-to-one odds, and all Bobby had was the shotgun resting against his chair.  
  
Wouldn’t be the worst fight he’d been in, but he worried about the kid upstairs.  
  
The tension broke when Davis stood, hands lifted in surrender. “Fine,” he snapped. “Sorry for interrupting your fucking beauty rest. Gene, Bucky, get your fat asses up, we’re hitting the road.”  
  
Bobby braced the door with his foot as they filed out, instinct telling him he should have both hands free, just in case.  
  
Walsh stopped on the porch, turning back with his right hand sliding into his back pocket, eyes calculating.  
  
Bobby shifted. “You don’t need to tip me,” he said, “but if you’re reaching for anything but your wallet, we’re going to have a problem.”  
  
Walsh held his gaze. Then Davis shouted from the truck, “Bucky! Get your ass down here before Gene starts drooling,” and Walsh half-turned as he moved down the stairs, keeping one eye on Bobby all the while.  
  
Bobby stood at his door, watching until the pickup turned the corner and the sound of its engine faded into the night. Then he locked the door and slowly headed back upstairs, trying to ease his racing heart.  
  
From the hall, he called out, “Coast is clear, Sam.”  
  
No response. Bobby hadn’t expected one.  
  
He knew where to look this time. Slowly he slid open his bedroom closet door. Wedged between Bobby’s boots and his second-best suit in its dry-cleaning bag, Sam stared up and through Bobby with neither a smile nor relief, but a terrible, familiar flat blankness.  
  
Bobby swallowed. Despite his protesting joints and his pulse racing like he was headed into a fight, he bent down to one knee before holding out his hand. “They’re gone, Sam.”  
  
After a long minute, Sam took his hand, allowing Bobby to haul him up and out of the closet.  
  
Bobby walked him back downstairs, knees almost shaking. He didn’t know if any of those particular hunters had ever visited Freak Camp, didn’t want to think about what could have happened if they’d come across Sam. Even without that possibility, that had been too damn close.  
  
At the guest room door he paused, groping for something to help, but not yet ready to pour a teenager whiskey, even though Sam was nearly eighteen. He settled on a broad offer: “You need anything?”  
  
Sam shook his head and stepped inside, still holding onto that duffel bag. He hadn’t yet said a word, Bobby realized. No sense in pushing him now, not when Bobby was shaken up, too. He double-checked the locks on his front door and returned to bed. He wouldn’t call Dean tonight, he decided. Sam could call him if he wanted to, and Bobby would see what the morning brought.  
  
At breakfast, Sam had returned to an earlier, silent version of the kid Bobby knew. Bobby felt the familiar pang of guilt, but at least Sam wasn’t flinching at his movements. He didn’t speak and didn’t make eye contact, not until Bobby asked the question that had been in his head when he’d woken up this morning, thinking about these two Winchester boys.  
  
“Does Dean still drink like a fish when things go south?”  
  
Sam snapped his gaze to Bobby’s face. He looked startled, which was progress. He considered the question for a long moment; just when Bobby started to worry, he answered. “Not in a while. Not like he used to.”  
  
Bobby nodded. “There was a time, in the space before he got you, that I used to lock most of my liquor in a safe when he crashed here. All hunters like a bottle, but when a fifth of Jack starts looking like a one-man serving size, that’s a surefire way for a hunter to meet an early grave.”  
  
Sam winced.  
  
“His old man was like that, off and on over the years,” Bobby added. “The habit gets carried in the blood and by example. Dean got it both ways. I hoped—well, he was so set on getting you, I hoped if it all...worked out, maybe he’d give his liver a break and stick around for his thirtieth birthday.”  
  
Sam looked deeply unnerved by the idea that Dean might not make it to thirty.  
  
“Things are working out,” Bobby said mildly. “But every drinker falls off the wagon sometime. You be sure to pocket the Impala’s keys, when he does.”  
  
Sam gave a slight, incredulous shake of his head, not in refusal so much as amazement. Slowly, he said, “I can do that now. But I couldn’t have, a few months ago.”  
  
“Well, he’s made it this far. You just gotta be on the lookout going forward. And even if he ain’t driving drunk—if it’s making you uncomfortable, Sam, it’s a problem.” He leaned in, making sure to catch Sam’s eye.  
  
Sam returned his gaze, still looking skeptical, but more alive than he had since before Bobby had helped him out of his closet the night before. “ _Everything_ makes me uncomfortable. Even the normal stuff that shouldn’t.”  
  
“I’m not talking about the normal stuff. There’s nothing normal about being too drunk to see straight.”  
  
“He hasn’t done that,” Sam protested, “in a long, long time.”  
  
“Yeah, well. Even if it’s just enough that makes you feel uneasy, or it’s a headache to get him back to the motel, you gotta tell him that the next day. That ain’t right. Takes two to tango, and he’s not the only one calling the shots.”  
  
Sam nodded. “That hasn’t happened… in a while. Dean’s—he cares. He notices when I’m upset. Even though that’s _everything_ , even the dumb stuff.” He spoke quietly, not quite meeting Bobby’s eye.  
  
“It ain’t dumb if it makes sense according to everything you’ve ever known,” Bobby told him.  
  
“It _feels_ dumb,” Sam said, in a tone that could almost be called bitchy. Bobby hid a smile behind his coffee mug. “But it’s better than it was,” Sam added a moment later. “Or it doesn’t get to me like it used to. And I’ve learned—” He hesitated, glancing at Bobby and then away.  
  
“Yeah?” Bobby prompted. “You figured out how to wind Dean round your little finger? Don’t figure that would take much effort.”  
  
That got him a hint of a smile. “No, I mean… it took a while, but I figured out that it makes him happy if I pretend to care more than I do, about the little stuff. Even if it’s just where we’re having dinner. I’ll talk about how all I really want is Mexican food, but there’s no Mexican restaurant in the next town, and I act like it’s the end of the world. Stuff like that. Do you think that’s okay, if I pretend like that? I don’t lie about anything more important.”  
  
Bobby huffed a laugh. Someday this kid was going to give him a damn heart condition, if he kept saying heartbreaking stuff at this rate. “Sure, kid. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.”  
  
~  
  
Sam cleaned the breakfast dishes, insisting he felt better, and he looked it enough that Bobby relented and gave him a stack of texts to peruse for any references to rougarous.  
  
Less than an hour in, they heard a car turn down the driveway.  
  
Bobby and Sam froze, looking at each other, then moved in unison toward the window. Bobby pushed aside the curtain to peer out, while Sam sidled toward the wall, out of direct view.  
  
A split-second glance was all it took to recognize the black-and-chrome sedan rolling toward the house. With a shuddering gasp, Sam bolted out the front door.  
  
Bobby stayed where he was, watching the Impala stop at a haphazard angle and Dean emerge. He’d hardly cleared the door when Sam barreled into him, knocking him back against the Impala. With a laugh, Dean wrapped his arms around Sam in return, pressing his mouth into Sam’s ear, saying something that Bobby didn’t bother to interpret.  
  
His mouth tugging up into something like a smile, Bobby turned away to the kitchen, pulling from the fridge a couple beers, plus a Sprite for Sam. Dean would have vanquished the spirit. He’d come back for Sam, who’d gotten by all right without him, barring a couple of rough spots. No one else could match the Winchesters for issues, but this particular pair would still come out all right at the end of the day.


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The full chapter is now below -- including a most breathtaking artwork by quickreaver!
> 
> Thank you so much to all our betas: whereupon, onlythefireborn, sylvia_locust, and firesign10.
> 
> Warning for discussion of sexual trauma and violence.

Sam was tenacious, stubborn, and incredibly focused. Dean knew that. He admired those qualities in Sam, he seriously did. Sometimes the way Sam attacked a problem left Dean in awe—and sometimes left him scared shitless that this time, Sam was throwing himself at a beast that he couldn’t take down. So far, against monsters, his studies, and every other obstacle, Sam had always come out on top. If Dean had to rank the top three reasons why he was honest-to-God in love with Sam, one of them would be Sam’s capacity to latch onto a problem and fight it until it was salted, burned, and in its grave.  
  
He just wished that this particular topic wasn’t something that Sam had targeted with that same laser focus and unremitting force.  
  
“This Thursday we should do it,” Sam said, eyes locked on the newspaper spread out over the table in the motel’s breakfast room. They were pretty sure about what was causing the unnatural deaths of middle-aged men with fairly exotic porn subscriptions, but Sam still checked the local paper every morning to make sure that there were no new deaths, which would play merry hell with their pattern. “The job will be done, we’ll still have the hotel room, hospital’s nearby, and occupancy here is pretty low, so I don’t think we’ll have to worry about anyone getting concerned and interrupting. It’s perfect.” He circled a name in the obits with more force than necessary, and Dean barely stopped himself from growling.  
  
“Sam, no.” Okay, maybe that came out with more irritation than he had planned.  
  
Sam’s head snapped up to meet Dean’s eyes, challenge in every line of his body. “No, what?”  
  
The funny thing was that if it hadn’t been _this_ topic, seeing Sam all assertive and refusing to accept a denial, would have had Dean hot under the collar and ready to pull Sam into a dark corner. “Just…no.”  
  
Sam folded up his paper, every movement deliberate and sharp-edged. “You’re saying you won’t fuck me.”  
  
Dean leaned back in his squeaky plastic chair and surveyed the room. The only other person present was a maid, determinedly sweeping crushed cereal off the floor.  
  
Miles City, Montana’s Americ-Inn was one of the deadest motels Dean had ever seen—and that included the motel in Spokane that had actually been haunted by the dead. Actually, that one had been much livelier. The nearly complete lack of customers here was one of the reasons Sam thought that this was the perfect place to “take the next step.” While that reasoning made Dean sick to his stomach, he had to admit to being grateful that no one else was around to hear this particular conversation.  
  
“I’m saying that we are not having butt sex as long as you have this fucked-up idea about it.” Dean tried to keep his voice down. The last thing he wanted was for one of the few motel guests to walk in and hear him shouting at Sam about _this_. If there was any right way to take this conversation, he didn’t know it.  
  
“So you won’t fuck me.”  
  
“ _Fuck_ , Sam.” That came out loud enough that the maid looked over, then immediately dropped her attention back to her sweeping. Dean could _feel_ her listening. He leaned over the table. “Just drop it.”  
  
A muscle jumped in Sam’s jaw. “Look, I realize that you don’t want to hurt me, I love that, I love _you_ for that, but listen to me—” Sam leaned in, his body language and expression urgent, and Dean reluctantly shut his mouth. “I’m not actually fragile, okay? I know there’ve been times, usually... _out_ , when I have to deal with people, that I’ve given you that idea, but this—this is the kind of thing I’m actually best at handling, okay? Like I do on a hunt.”  
  
“Sex is not like a hunt,” Dean said, feeling both exhausted and ready to put his fist through the window.  
  
“Right,” Sam said, a little too quickly. “I get that there’s no monster. There’ll just be the two of us. But it takes some of the same—what I mean is that I’m good at handling a lot of pain and keeping my focus on the end goal.”  
  
“God damn it!” Dean smacked the table with his hand, and Sam flinched back. It made Dean angry at himself as well as at those unspoken motherfuckers who were the whole reason Sam talked so matter-of-factly, almost proudly, about his ability to _handle a lot of pain_. “Sam, this is exactly what I’m talking about, this is _exactly_ the problem. How many times do I have to tell you that it _doesn’t hurt_ if you do it right?”  
  
He was definitely at full volume and climbing. Every time this had come up (Sam had gotten more persistent since Dean had picked him up from Bobby’s), Dean could feel himself losing control of the conversation way too fast. Sam’s line of argument made him sick, and angry, and desperate for a drink, all in a tangled-up mess that he didn’t want to think about. Dean especially didn’t want to think about how Sam still believed that Dean might _hurt_ him, just because it might feel good for Dean.  
  
Sam was still leaning away from him, but the thinly veiled anger in his eyes was a match for Dean’s own. “Dean, I know you’d never hurt someone...for fun. I’m sure you never hu-hurt anyone b-badly in bed, and no one’s complained” —his tone said, _Why would they, if they were with you?_ — “but that doesn’t change the f-fact you don’t know w-what you’re talking about.”  
  
Dean wanted to strangle him. In a loving and completely meta-fucking-phorical way. “Sam, I _do_ know what I’m talking about.” Yup, that was getting too loud. The maid was watching them now, eyes wide, expression torn between delight and shock. Dean smiled at her and hoped it was the _please-don’t-mind-us_ smile, not the _you-come-closer-and-I’ll-bite_ smile.  
  
“Dean, I kn-know you have more experience in doing this than I do, but you’ve n-never—“  
  
“Sam, fuck, I’ve _done_ it, I've _been there_ , I’ve taken it up the ass, and it was fine. So fucking _stop_ already!”  
  
When Sam froze, his face drained of color and his eyes wide in shock, Dean realized he could have mentioned that fact in a slightly more tactful way.  
  
~  
  
Sam didn't know whether he was immobilized because Dean was rewriting a major piece of his reality, or from ice-cold rage ( _he would hunt down and gut the people who hurt Dean_ ) pulsing through his veins.  
  
Probably both. So he breathed slowly, containing himself until he could verify that he had heard that right. Until he could be sure he wouldn’t grab Dean and either shake him or never let go.  
  
He licked his lips and spoke very carefully. “Dean. You’ve…been…”  
  
“Yes, Sam, I’ve been fucked, okay? One second.” Dean held up a finger and pushed up from his chair.  
  
For a sick second, Sam thought that Dean was leaving. He couldn’t deal with the conversation, so he was going to leave Sam here with their cold continental breakfast until he could bear to look at Sam again. Sam’s thoughts spun with free-wheeling anxiety and dread, but Dean didn’t go any farther than the woman cleaning in the corner.  
  
“Hey,” Dean said. “This is kind of a private thing, could you just…leave for a while? Thanks.” He pressed a bill into her hand. The woman raised her eyebrows at him, but picked up her broom and left without a word, one last glance thrown over her shoulder as she closed the door behind her.  
  
Dean turned back, pushing a hand through his hair, and returned to the table to slump into his chair.  
  
“Okay,” he said. “If we’re going to have this conversation, let’s have it.”  
  
Sam took a deep, shaky breath, hands clenching on the edge of the table. He could almost hear the cheap plywood and plastic creaking under his grip. “You…you’ve been penetrated.”  
  
“Yes.” Dean huffed. “I prefer pitching, but I’ve tried catching and got my rocks off just the same.”  
  
“How many…” _How many people hurt you. How many times._  
  
“A few. I got around, Sam, before you. There was this guy that I started with in Oklahoma, made it pretty easy, and a few one-night stands since. And if we’re not just talking…” Dean took a big breath and pushed it out again, throwing him an uneasy glance, “dicks, then there’s been a couple girls too. With strap-ons.” Dean shrugged. Every word and gesture was wary, like he expected Sam to explode at any second.  
  
Sam carefully did not say what he wanted to say. _Give me their names so I can kill them all_. “And—it didn’t hurt?”  
  
“Nah.” Then Dean reconsidered, shrugged. “Okay, so a couple times it started out awkward, and I’d rather not do it again unless it’s with someone I trusted a hell of a lot.” He met Sam’s eyes. “I trust you, Sam. Do you trust me?”  
  
Sam swallowed hard. “Dean, you know I—“  
  
“No, Sam, do you trust me not to hurt you? _Ever?_ ”  
  
“Dean, you don’t—“  
  
“No, Sam, I think I _do_ understand. What I understand is that you’re in completely the wrong headspace for this to be our next move this week.” Dean grabbed his hand, and Sam almost jumped, startled by the contact. “Sam, if you really want us to start going in that direction, okay, fine, but let’s start with _me_. I’ll show you how to prep me, step by step. I will be splayed out for you and begging, like I would be for _no one_ else, because I trust you absolutely. But there’s no way in hell I’m sticking my dick up your ass when you think I’m going to rip it apart!”  
  
Sam couldn't hold back a shudder at the image Dean's words brought, even for the second it flashed across his mind. He was angry, probably just as angry and determined as Dean, and not at all afraid of the man across the table from him. But he couldn’t stop his body’s reaction to the shouting and anger and the memories (both what he had had to watch, and what he had been sent in to clean up afterward) seared into his brain. In this moment, with this conversation, Sam could not stop that reaction. _Damn them for that, too_.  
  
Even though it was the wrong thing to say, even though Sam knew he was winning Dean’s argument for him—he wasn’t _stupid_ —he couldn’t stop the words. "I wouldn't do that to you," he rasped.  
  
Dean would have been justified in letting go of his hand, but he didn’t. He just squeezed harder. “Sam, this is exactly what I’m talking about. Why would I ever do something to you that I wouldn’t be willing to take myself? Why should things be good for me and fucking awful for you? We’re goddamn equals. You believe that? You have to, Sam.”  
  
Sam had to back up. He felt shaken and uncertain, and he hated that feeling because he knew it wasn’t what Dean wanted. It wasn’t what he wanted either, but it was exactly what he was reduced to when he wasn’t watching himself, when something triggered him— _reminded him what kind of stupid freak he was_ —into the same old destructive thoughts.  
  
What he couldn’t shake when he tried to let this go, when he tried to be satisfied with the joy that Dean gave him every day, was the fear that it could be taken from them. Two weeks ago—sick and petrified with fear while huddled in Bobby’s closet, listening to hunters so close that a single badly timed cough would give him away—Sam had been thrown right back to camp. He recalled that constant terror that the guards and the hunters would take the last clean thing he had to offer, knowing that if they did, Dean would have no reason to come back for him.  
  
He didn’t believe that now. He knew Dean would always come back for him, no matter what they did. But if the ASC ever captured them, or if they just found Sam, there might not be time for saving, no time for rescue. And Sam would never be able to give that to Dean. Dean would never get the chance to prove to him that being fucked—when done by someone who loved you—didn’t have to rip you apart. Sam would have lost Dean’s promise forever, and Sam really, really did not want to let those bastards win. Not anymore.  
  
When a monster was too big, too vicious, or too immortal to stake and burn, you had to face it down and pull its teeth until it wasn’t a threat. So that’s what he was doing: facing it down until he didn’t have to be afraid anymore. He just had to put that into words that Dean could understand. But he couldn’t do that if he was shaking with that damn old fear.  
  
“Ridiculous,” he rasped. “My poker face is much better than yours.”  
  
And just like that Dean grinned, relief all over his face. “You kick my ass at lots of things.” He leaned over the table and kissed him, deep and slow, their hands locked together. “Definitely cuter.”  
  
“Yeah right,” Sam snorted. He wanted this. He wanted Dean in every way, both because he wanted to give Dean that, and for himself, for reasons that were personal and private and sensitive as his own skin where the old scars met unmarked flesh. A huge piece of Sam just wanted to let go and try another time, maybe push some night in bed when Dean was already distracted and maybe thinking about it already (though Sam had tried that and it hadn’t worked well), but he didn’t want to give in, either. _They_ had taught him to give up, and anything they had taught, he didn’t want to believe any more.  
  
When Dean leaned back in his chair, smiling fondly, Sam ducked his head, closed his eyes, and tried one more time, tried to say it in a way that would convince Dean of what Sam knew in his bones was true, of what he desperately needed.  
  
“I still want it,” he said softly. _It has to be you._  
  
“Sam, I’d have one hell of a good time, too, but right now—”  
  
“Please, Dean.” Sam pressed his hand. “You say it doesn’t hurt, you say you’ve t-tried it, and I believe you, you _know_ I believe you.” He also wanted to kill everyone who had done that to Dean, but figured that at this point that was equal parts jealousy and fear. “But I—I don’t think—I can’t—this isn’t something that I can wrap my head around just because you explain it. Or I can wrap my head around it, but that’s not what matters right now. It’s not my _head_ , it’s my—my gut that needs to get it, and I don’t think that’s going to happen unless you help me: unless you just do it and it’s what you say. P-please, Dean. I w-w-want this. Or at least not having it makes me… I don’t want to be scared of this anymore.”  
  
“Sam, you know—“  
  
“Hear me out,” Sam snapped, for one second in control and confident. That receded, and he had to drop his eyes. “This is a big thing, a thing I can share with you, something I can give you, something you can give me, and I want it to be _you_ , Dean.” Or the nightmares would continue, the fear that some hunter, smiling like Crusher over a fresh body, would be his first while Dean was bleeding and tied up in another room or dead. Those nights, Sam woke up choking on a scream because it was _still possible_.  
  
And Dean knew him, knew him so well that it was scary sometimes and other times it was the greatest gift that Sam ever received. Dean knew what he was thinking of, and his expression darkened. “Sam, you know you’re never going back. I will never let you go back.”  
  
“You can’t control everything, Dean.” Sam tried to keep his voice even, tried to keep eye contact. “I’m sick of being terrified of this.”  
  
They stopped then, the silence stretching between them over the remains of their breakfast.  
  
Dean broke first, lifting one hand to brush it through his hair. “Okay, Sam.”  
  
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Okay what?”  
  
“You’ve convinced me. Kind of.” Dean abruptly looked a little panicked. “We are _not_ fucking this Thursday, it’s not going to happen, but…the next time we have the time to take it slow, and do it right, and _nothing_ is going on, yeah, we’ll start. And _then_ if that goes okay, maybe we’ll start thinking about going all the way, okay? But not Thursday, and that’s my best offer."  
  
Winning even this much of a concession out of Dean made Sam feel equal parts sick relief, dread, and triumph. “Thank you,” he said, trying to put all the relief into his voice and none of the sudden trepidation.  
  
Unexpectedly, Dean grinned. “Sammy, just wait until I find your sweet spot. Now _that_ you can thank me for.”  
  
~*~  
  
They did not fuck that Thursday. The following case was messy, involving way too many nosy locals, a flesh-eating plant, and a runaway haunted clown car.  
  
When it was all over but the shouting (and a heck of a lot of paperwork for some unlucky bastard), Sam and Dean headed back to their motel several towns over. As soon as they shut their room door behind them, Sam pulled Dean close. He wasn’t thinking about that conversation when Dean had said _yes_. He only wanted to taste Dean’s mouth, to feel his rapid breath against his lips, to feel his heartbeat under Sam’s fingers. But Dean met him with matching urgency, and they dragged each other to the bed, kicking off shoes and jeans, tugging off shirts. When they were down to nothing but underwear and warm skin, Dean pulled back.  
  
“Sam,” he panted. He caught himself, took a careful breath and met Sam’s eyes. “Do you still want to go there?”  
  
Sam blinked at him, confused. The last place he could remember saying he wanted to go was a Jefferson City taco place they had read about, but he had trouble believing Dean wanted to stop and drive there right this minute. “Where…?”  
  
Then Dean slid his hand lower until he was curving his fingers along the muscle of Sam’s ass, and Sam remembered.  
  
The adrenaline rush that hit Sam then had nothing to do with the familiar heat of Dean’s body against his. It was his turn to take a shaky breath. Then he pushed a smile onto his face (not too wide, Dean would know if he was faking, but he probably wouldn’t mind if Sam was _trying_ instead) and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”  
  
“Right.” Dean pressed his forehead to Sam’s for a moment. “I got prep stuff last time we stopped for supplies, let me get that. Back in two seconds, Sam.” And then he was up and off the bed, and the suddenly empty space felt very cold against Sam’s bare chest.  
  
Sam lay back, staring at the ceiling, breath coming fast, lips and body tingling. He heard Dean unzip the duffle. He wouldn't look to see what Dean was getting. He didn't know exactly what kind of prep Dean had been talking about, and he hadn't wanted to ask. No matter what Dean said, Sam was still expecting the moment when Dean admitted what was necessary, what Sam _knew_ had to be necessary. Or Dean would just do it because he didn’t want to hurt him, and at a certain point it would hurt more to know what was coming before it happened. Maybe Dean would bring soft restraints, so Sam wouldn't be able to hurt either of them accidentally. Maybe some kind of drug so he wouldn’t be able to feel it. That could be what Dean meant and what reals usually got before sex. Sam hoped it had been what Dean had gotten, the times he’d...experienced this.  
  
Then Dean was back, pressing his palm to Sam's cheek, one thumb rubbing. "Hey, you with me?"  
  
Sam nodded, swallowing, forcing himself to focus on Dean's face. Dean looked more than a little nervous himself.  
  
"No checking out on me, got that, Sam? We'll stop this right now if that's where you're going."  
  
"No," Sam said, hoping Dean didn't hear the breathless panic starting to creep up. _How am I going to get through this if I can't blank out—_ "No, no, I'm here, really."  
  
"I mean it," Dean said, with more warning. "You gotta _talk_ to me, okay, Sam? You tell me you trust me, and I trust you, too—I'm trusting you to tell me, tell me the truth, the second anything—you gotta talk to me every second of the way, okay? I wanna know how _everything_ feels, like running commentary, to do this right. That's the rule, if we're gonna do this."  
  
Sam closed his eyes, aware of everything spinning out of control under the surface—how could he possibly obey a rule like that? He couldn’t imagine lying to Dean, and they’d never get through this with Sam _speaking_ —but he pushed that away. He trusted Dean. He did, in this just as much as everything else. "Okay. Got it."  
  
"Okay." Dean paused, and Sam opened his eyes to see him drop his head to Sam's bare stomach to land a wet, messy kiss right next to his belly button. Sam choked back a laugh as his body twitched in surprise, one hand flying to Dean's hair in protest. " _Dean_ —"  
  
Dean raised his head, smiling again. "C'mon, how does that feel?"  
  
"It _tickles_ , jerk." Dean blew a second loud, wet kiss on the other side of Sam's stomach, and Sam squirmed, laughing out loud this time. "It's wet and tickles and this is _not_ sexy."  
  
"Yeah? How about this?" Dean trailed his lips down Sam's abdomen and over his waistband, mouthing a warm, moist line right over the bulge in Sam's boxers.  
  
Sam let out a shuddering gasp, hips jerking involuntarily upward. Dean caught them and continued nuzzling him where he could feel every breath.  
  
" _Dean_ , oh shit—"  
  
"C'mon, Sam," he said, not bothering to raise his mouth. "You gotta tell me how it feels."  
  
"Good—really, really fucking good, oh God Dean I can't—"  
  
Dean sat up, and—just when Sam was about to pull himself together—Dean slid a hand into Sam’s boxers, touching him with just enough pressure to be a tease.  
  
"Dean, are you trying to _kill_ me—no, don't stop, it feels good I love it just keep going—"  
  
Dean did, keeping up the slow stroke until Sam was rocking up into his hand each time and begging mindlessly. Right when Sam felt himself getting close, Dean stopped to tug Sam's boxers the rest of the way off and then his own. He straddled Sam, a warm weight over Sam’s thighs, and picked up what he had taken out of his duffel. Sam blinked at it, too dazed with arousal to understand how a plastic tube about the size of a toothpaste container could have anything to do with sex. He felt hot and blurred and warm, and it was difficult to recall his trepidation about what was next, even when Dean popped off the cap and squeezed a clear gel onto his fingers. No knives, no restraints, no tools, and Sam was still on his back with his legs down, not on his stomach or on display. As always with Dean, this was like no sex that Sam had ever seen.  
  
Dean leaned over him, close enough that his own body and erection rubbed against Sam's, making him moan.  
  
"Still feel good, Sammy?"  
  
"Yes—yes, fuck yes."  
  
Dean touched his slick fingers to Sam's chest, drawing two lines down to his belly button, then back up to circle his nipples. "Like that? How it feels?"  
  
"Oh—oh, yeah. Yes." He _did_ like it. Cool and wet, rapidly warming to body temperature, nothing unpleasant about it at all. Something was different about the intimate touch of Dean’s fingers covered in the slick substance, swiping across his chest and continuing to tease his nipples. Sam could do little besides react: moaning, arching, and trying to make the sort of sounds that meant Dean wouldn’t stop. All he could really manage to articulate was _yes_ , intermingled with swearing, but Dean seemed to understand.  
  
When Dean finally reached back down between their bodies and took hold of his cock—oh hell, the slick warmth of it, how easily Sam slid in his fist, was as mind-blowing as when Dean took him in his mouth.  
  
Dean murmured the whole time, voice steady and deep in his ear: "Wanna make you feel good like this all the time, Sammy—you know that? You trust me?"  
  
Sam gasped, "Yes, yes," and came, cock tightening and shooting in Dean's steady grip, coating both their stomachs.  
  
Dean jacked him through it, a little slower, kissing him easy and light with shallow darts of tongue that left Sam stretching up for more. Just as his heartbeat started to slow, Dean released him, reaching around with both hands to palm and squeeze his ass. That felt good, too, just like every time Dean had done it before, and Sam moaned gutturally, thrusting up against Dean despite still reeling from his orgasm. He could feel Dean's hard cock between them, and he started to reach for it, but Dean kissed him again and let go of his ass to push Sam's hand back to the bed.  
  
"No, no. I'll come when I want to. This is about you, Sammy."  
  
Dean resumed kneading his ass, squeezing in and spreading out his cheeks, until Sam was writhing and whimpering for what he didn't know. Then Dean slipped his fingertips in between, _there_. Sam hadn't thought there was a functioning neuron left in his brain, but that was enough for him to freeze with a sharp inhale.  
  
Dean didn't pull away, but he didn't push any further, either. He kept his fingertip on Sam's hole, light but there, as he kissed him, slow and sweet and deep, until Sam could breathe again. "This okay, Sammy? Do you want me to stop?"  
  
"No," he said, because it didn't even hurt yet, and he was still determined. He was prepared.  
  
Dean still didn't push any deeper, but kissed and sucked a path down Sam's jaw and neck, to his collarbone, making him squirm a little again. Dean's left hand moved to Sam's balls, gently rolling them, not like he was trying to get Sam off, rather just to distract him.  
  
Sam felt very distracted. "I like that," he told Dean, breathily. He was supposed to be talking, not that he could always remember to with Dean doing _that_.  
  
"Good." Dean lifted his head enough to look Sam in the eye. "You still trust me?"  
  
"Yes," Sam said, and meant it with all his being.  
  
Dean brought his face back close to Sam's, and whispered, "Breathe when I tell you, okay? Out—" Sam did, emptying his lungs in one long shaky exhale, focusing on nothing but how Dean had him, every point of contact that grounded him in this moment. No past nightmares.  
  
"And in,” Dean said  
  
This time, as Sam drew in a breath, he felt Dean's slick fingertip breaching the tight ring of muscle. His inhale turned into a gasp, but only of surprise—whatever he had expected, it was nothing like _this_. Dean had lifted his head high enough to watch his face, eyes sharp and close, not missing a thing.  
  
"It's okay," Sam managed. "It's all right, it doesn't—this doesn't hurt. It's..." _weird_ , he almost said, but there was something else to it, too, something that made him want _more_. "I can't tell until you go further," he said at last, and Dean's sharp, watchful expression relaxed into a smile.  
  
"Breathe in," Dean said, and pushed further, another inch.  
  
" _Oh_ ," Sam gasped again. His nerves were reeling, and his brain couldn't quite comprehend how _not bad_ this was. Totally different, a peculiar intrusion making it hard to think, but nothing, nothing like he had expected or dreaded. " _Dean_ ," he gasped, unable to find the words, but Dean heard the plea behind it. His smile broadened, hinting at a smirk, and he began to pump his finger gently—not moving any further in or out, just rocking back and forth, letting Sam feel.  
  
Sam grabbed Dean's shoulders, squeezing tight. "Yes, Dean, yes—oh _God_ , it feels good, I like it, I do I do I didn't know—" His words were garbled, but he couldn't find a way to tell Dean what this was, how much he didn't want him to stop. How much he wanted _more_ —no, wait, he could manage that one. "More, more, more," and Dean sucked in a breath of his own, eyelids fluttering, and he pushed his finger in _deep_ , so Sam could feel the whole length of it inside him.  
  
Sam had no idea what he said after that, but it was enough for Dean to slide a second finger in. Sam could feel _both_ in him, filling him and stretching him, Dean _inside him_ , oh God. He wanted nothing but this forever. His cock curved tight over his stomach, and Dean continued the steady slide back and forth, in and out, his own face flushed and the most gorgeous thing Sam had ever seen.  
  
Dean said huskily: "Yeah, Sam, you like that, like how my fingers feel in you. Love seeing you like this, so fucking beautiful. You ready now? Ready?" And Dean curled his fingers inside Sam, right there at the deepest point, and Sam's vision went white.  
  
He thought there could be no more intense pleasure than coming under Dean's hand, mouth, or voice. He was wrong. When Dean's fingers pressed that spot, Sam’s body convulsed with the blaze of sensation that shot throughout: the breathless, gasping eternity of release.  
  
Conscious thought and voluntary motor function returned barely in time to hear Dean’s soft curse and feel him come beside him while Sam struggled to control his breathing and focus after that wash of euphoria.  
  
"Easy, Sam,” said Dean’s voice in his ear, warm and fucked-out. “Easy, take some slow, deep breaths." Dean rested one hand over Sam's chest, then reached across the table to snag a water bottle and bring it to Sam's lips. Sam swallowed, more liquid pouring over his mouth than actually entering it. Laughing, Dean leaned down and kissed him.  
  
When they came up for air, Sam laughed shakily. "Oh my God," he said with the next breath he drew.  
  
"You were fucking _amazing_ ," Dean told him. "Just perfect, and so hot. I'm so fucking lucky to have you."  
  
Sam laughed a little more wildly, as he still did every time Dean said that. Dean shifted, turning onto his side, and with a jolt Sam realized Dean's fingers were _still_ in him. Mouth falling open, Sam stared at him for a minute before he was able to speak. "What—"  
  
Dean smirked. Leaning close to Sam, he whispered, "Withdrawal's one of the most important parts. Wanted you to be awake for it.” He slowly drew out both fingers.  
  
Sam let out a half-groan, half-gasp at the ache left behind. It throbbed, not painfully, but a reminder of what was no longer filling him. "Fuck. Dean?"  
  
Dean kissed him. "Yeah, Sam?"  
  
"That was... incredible."  
  
Dean's shoulders shook with laughter and, Sam was pretty sure, a little relief. "Yeah, I did try to tell you."  
  
"Can we do it again? Soon?'  
  
Dean grinned, and the glimmer in his eyes was all the answer Sam needed.  
  
~*~  
  
That first experience with fingering had been nothing like Sam had expected and better than he could have ever imagined.  
  
Likewise, nothing could have prepared Sam for the mind-blowing pleasure that was _three_ of Dean’s fingers twisting inside him, while Dean’s mouth wrapped around his cock, sucking him with single-minded determination.  
  
Sam twisted and arched his back, unable to maintain a rhythm or keep himself still, but Dean moved with him, laughed around Sam’s cock, and pushed in again. He was _fucking_ Sam with his fingers, and as soon as Sam connected the words and action and _idea_ , that was it and that was all. Climax hit him hard and beautifully, sweeping away any self-restraint or self-possession he had remaining.  
  
He wasn’t entirely certain if he actually passed out. All he knew was that when he next opened his eyes with awareness, Dean was wiping himself up with a handful of tissues. Sam recognized the flush of his cheeks and slightly unfocused gaze, and for a minute he felt unable to believe the evidence before him: Dean had _come_ while finger-fucking and sucking Sam off. He had gotten _off_ doing that.  
  
“Dean,” Sam said, and Dean lifted his head. “I’m ready. I want you to fuck me.”  
  
Dean stared at him, before his mouth turned up in a grin. He leaned across Sam to kiss him deep.  
  
“You gotta tell me at the start next time, not the end.”  
  
~*~  
  
It would hurt more, Dean had warned him. They would both be slicked up, but there was no getting around the difference between Dean’s fingers and his cock.  
  
Sam didn’t care. They had opened a door he’d been terrified of, but what he discovered on the other side was something he couldn’t have imagined in his wildest dreams: the all-consuming, euphoric sensation of _Dean inside of him_. From the moment Dean’s finger had first penetrated him, Sam had become obsessed. Not every moment was euphoric—some had a lot of discomfort and required steady breathing to get through—but what Sam couldn’t get enough of was _trusting_ Dean to make it good, and never being disappointed. He loved putting himself in Dean’s hands as never before and trusting him to take on what had scared Sam speechless for as long as he could remember. Instead of pain, terror, and the degradation Sam had always associated with penetration, Dean transformed it into something so fucking good that Sam couldn’t form the words to tell him. That should have been no surprise; after all, Dean had been doing that for him in one way or another since the day he’d gotten Sam out.  
  
Now Sam wanted _more_. Even if it brought the pain he’d always anticipated, he thought it might still be worth it, just to know afterward that Dean had been fully inside of him, his cock sheathed in Sam, and that it would feel good to Dean.  
  
And Sam found it hard to worry when he’d gotten so fucking addicted to the prep, to the glide of Dean’s fingers working inside him. They tried a new position this time: Sam straddling Dean’s lap, facing him so they breathed into each other’s mouths, setting the pace as he worked himself up and down on Dean’s fingers like every slutty thing he’d ever been told he was. There was no shame now, just Dean’s wondering eyes and breathy encouragement, occasional hisses urging him on. Dean, as always, broke and remade all the rules defining Sam’s world.  
  
“I want you,” Sam said again, pushing his hips down to Dean’s knuckles, reveling in the feel of three of Dean’s fingers deep inside him, pressure and pleasure wrapped together until it was hard to think of anything else. He grabbed the bottle of lube beside them on the bed, squeezed some of the gel into his hand, and wrapped it around Dean’s cock, hard and jutting between them.  
  
Dean groaned, his eyelids fluttering shut. “Fuck, Sammy. Fuck. Sure you’re ready, baby?”  
  
“Yes.” Sam ground his hips forward, rubbing his cock along Dean’s. Dean wrapped his arm around Sam’s back and flipped them over, Sam’s back to the mattress and his legs around Dean’s waist. Dean pulled back slightly to rip open the condom he had set beside the lube, sliding it down his dick with a quick, practiced move.  
  
Sam felt the heavy, blunt weight of Dean’s cockhead against his hole, as Dean’s hot, breathy voice found his ear. “Breathe out—” and as Sam did, Dean breached him.  
  
Sam breathed through it, and he could hear Dean’s ragged gasps in his ear. He knew at least that he was still there, still present in a way that mattered, even if the pressure of Dean’s cock was nothing like his fingers. But Dean wasn’t here to hurt him.  
  
Dean was, in fact, holding himself almost completely still, their foreheads touching, and that was no good.  
  
“Move,” Sam gasped.  
  
Dean dragged his cheek along Sam’s before lifting his head to look Sam in the eye. “Need me to pull out?” The words came out in a tumble, difficult to separate.  
  
“No, just—move, move like you did your fingers, c’mon.” That was the only way this could feel good, he knew that much, and the only chance of Dean hitting that sweet spot. “You gotta fuck me, Dean.”  
  
Dean cursed, lifting himself up on his hands, and began to move in shallow, slow thrusts. Sam measured his breathing, focusing on relaxing his body, moving his hips to meet Dean’s.  
  
“ _Fuck_ , Sammy—”  
  
“I want you,” Sam repeated, the desperate need making his voice throaty. “C’mon, Dean. Wanna feel you— “ He gasped as Dean sank another inch into him.  
  
This was it. Dean was finally _fucking_ him, and the old crawling fear of the unknown, of someone else, was falling away, collapsing into nothing. What was happening now between him and Dean was real, and Sam couldn’t help the whine in his throat as he locked his arm around Dean’s neck and shoulders.  
  
They moved together in a rough rhythm, Dean’s hips canting into him. Sam wrapped a leg around Dean’s waist as he arched up, needing more. Dean caught his hand, locking their fingers together as he pressed it into the bed. Their bodies were tangled together in a closeness strange and wild, slick skin meeting on each thrust, but as his climax neared, Sam felt the headiest triumph he’d ever known.  
  
Like the vastness of the ocean, the power in this intimacy and moment was more than he could comprehend, but it filled him with that same endless awe, the knowledge that there was good in the world, and he and Dean had seized a piece of it for themselves.  
  
Each thrust drove him higher, each panted breath mingled with Dean’s a reminder that he was not in this moment alone, never alone again if either of them had anything to say about it.  
  
This was the realest moment that Sam had ever experienced. In that final moment, crashing into pleasure with Dean still buried inside him, he knew that no one could ever take this away.

 

(art by quickreaver)


	37. Chapter 37

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is our biggest jump yet (three years!), hold on.
> 
> Thank you so much to whereupon, onlythefireborn, and sylvia_locust, for excellent feedback. All remaining errors and weirdness are our own.

“I’m sorry, can I get your name again?”  
  
“Sam Winchester. Like the rifle.” Sam smiled at the librarian, who was updating his member card for the new system installed last year.  
  
Of all the many libraries across the country Sam had visited, the one in Boulder was the only one that felt like home. It hadn’t changed much since Sam had first entered it nearly five years ago: the same natural light flooding through the glass ceiling, the scattered armchairs, and most importantly, the two floors of aisles and aisles of books. Admittedly, noticing those details had come later, after his first time inside. What he mostly remembered from that first visit was the diamond pattern of the carpet and the color of the librarian’s desk.  
  
“And your birthday?” she asked. She had long hair gone slightly grey and wore a vest with tiny winged books flying across it.  
  
“May 2nd, 1983.”  
  
“That’s right around the corner, isn’t it!” She glanced up at him, the wrinkles around her eyes deepening as she smiled. “Got big plans for your twenty-first?”  
  
“A few,” Sam said. His birthday was the reason they were back in Boulder for more than a pit stop, after all.  
  
New library card in his wallet and books (a couple on cooking, one on wilderness first aid, and Bill Bryson’s  _A Short History of Nearly Everything_ ) under his arm, Sam left the library and headed down the street to Moe’s Broadway Bagels. The spring sun lit the street and warmed Sam’s skin. He felt he knew these roads and belonged. Once, this familiarity had been unnerving rather than comforting.  
  
Neither Janet nor Maryann (Sam’s “bagel ladies,” as Dean referred to them) were behind the counter. Instead a morose-looking teenager slouched over the glass display, long dyed black hair concealing one eye. He kept blowing his hair out of his face, and it kept falling back down immediately, even as he rang up Sam’s dozen assorted bagels and stored them in a large brown paper bag.  
  
The only other person in the shop was a young woman about Sam’s age, who had half a chocolate bagel with cream cheese on a small plate by her elbow. All her attention was on the laptop in front of her, one chemistry textbook open beside it.  
  
Sam took his bagels to a window seat and texted Dean that he was ready to be picked up. While he waited, he opened the Bryson book, but he’d only gotten a page in when the doorbell chimed, and he looked up.  
  
The man’s thin gray hair hung limply from under a ratty ball cap, and he had a suspicious, mistrustful gaze. He stood with a slight hunch, as though protecting himself from a cold wind that hadn’t followed him into the bagel shop. Layers of clothes hung loose on his frame. His hand bounced on his leg in an irregular pattern that made Sam tense. This man was no freak, at least not that Sam could see, but that kind of energy always found an outlet. Sam shifted to the edge of his seat, keeping his movement slow and relaxed.  
  
The man glanced toward Sam out of the corner of his eye and flinched away. He took in the counter where the bored employee contemplated the unfairness of life in a used coffee filter from the espresso machine; then turned toward the woman sitting at the table in the back corner. He blinked, stared at her for a minute too long, and then made a beeline for her. When he seized hold of the back of the chair across the table from her, she looked up and froze.  
  
“I’ve seen you here before,” he said, loud in the quiet shop. “You’re a student. I know where you study, you study at the university.”  
  
The woman sat up straight in her chair. “Yes, but I don’t think—”  
  
“You’re always alone. But you drink good coffee, like, the good stuff.” He spoke clearly, but a little too fast and without pausing for her to speak, as though he cared less about where the words hit, and more about getting them out. “Can you buy me a coffee? You always get the good stuff, so you could buy me a coffee. And your boyfriend won’t mind because you’re alone.” He was blocking her path to the door.  
  
She had taken hold of her laptop, her other hand extended toward her bag like she wanted to grab it and bolt, but didn’t dare to make any sudden moves. “Listen, I don’t think I know you, and I’d just like to get back to—”  
  
“What, what, that’s too much to ask—you won’t get me a fucking cup of coffee? What’s wrong with you?” the man shouted, and Sam was on his feet.  
  
He didn’t want to be another body blocking the woman’s exit, but he needed to redirect the man’s attention. He leaned over the table between them, breaking into the man’s line of sight.  
  
“You need to back off,” Sam told him, in a calm but implacable tone. The man jerked back a step, his gaze flinching. Sam was taller than him, and broader in the shoulders.  
  
“Not talking to you,” he said. “I was talking to—”  
  
Sam took a step in, forcing the man back between two tables and opening the space behind him. To his side, he heard the snap of the laptop shutting, a rustle, and then the woman was out of her seat, bolting out of the shop with her bag, laptop and textbook clutched under her arm.  
  
Sam took a step back when she was safely outside, but he kept his gaze locked on the man, who was glaring at the floor somewhere to his right. “Don’t do that again,” Sam warned him. “Don’t come into this shop if you’re just looking for someone weaker than you are. I can get you a coffee if you need coffee, but—”  
  
The man didn’t listen to the rest of it, just pushed past Sam to head for the exit, muttering under his breath as he left. Sam stepped outside to watch him go, but the woman was out of sight.  
  
Re-entering the shop, Sam smiled apologetically at the employee, who was staring open-mouthed, phone to his ear.  
  
“Did you call the cops?” Sam asked, voice even, feeling the blood and adrenaline starting to pound in his veins.  
  
“No, I didn’t—dude, that was amazing. You just…” The teenager made a gesture that seemed to encompass the confrontation, the retreat, and everything in the last five minutes.  
  
“Some people do that, try to bully people,” Sam said. “Can’t let them get away with it.”  
  
Realizing that normal people didn’t shout, or hurt, or size up and target the weakest people in a room had been a long, slow struggle, and something that he still marveled at. Even more difficult had been recognizing his ability to stop it, to fight the little monsters in the world who were not monsters at all.  
  
Five years out of Freak Camp. Some days Sam thought about how far he had come, how terror had once been his daily paralysis, and he couldn’t wrap his head around it. Who in the camp would have ever bet a single bite of food that he’d make twenty-one?  
  
There was a reason to celebrate every breath, every moment he made eye contact without quailing inside, every sweet spring day. He just wasn’t sure he was on board with Dean’s intended method of celebration.  
  
Feeling the employee’s eyes on the back of his head, Sam returned to his seat by the window. He left his book shut, watching the street for the Impala.  
  
~*~  
  
On Friday, the Boulder art museum was nearly deserted, which provided Sam and Dean a welcome measure of privacy as they wandered the exhibits, keeping their voices low only so their argument wouldn’t echo in the cavernous rooms.  
  
“Dude, all I’m saying is that you only turn twenty-one once. We gotta toast it being legal for you to drink a toast.”  
  
Sam made a dismissive noise. He kept his face turned to an abstract blue vase that looked halfway between a woman and a threshing machine, but Dean totally saw the scathing look Sam shot out of the corner of his eye. “Getting wasted is how  _you_ like to celebrate.”  
  
“Dude, c’mon, that’s ancient history,” Dean said sharply. Maybe in terms of time, the “ancient history” was more like a couple years ago, but it felt a hell of lot longer since he’d been stupid enough to leave Sam without backup when there was a chance he might need it. It’d only taken one bad hunt when Sam had been helping him out of a bar, and the thing they’d been hunting had been waiting for them under the Impala.  
  
Sam had taken it down, of course he had, but he’d needed stitches afterward and Dean wasn’t in any condition to help with  _that_ , either. Dean had sworn that was the last time Sam would have to stitch himself up, and he’d kept that promise. He still liked a few when the opportunity presented itself, but there was a difference between buzzed and drunk. “And besides, who said anything about getting wasted?” Dean added, undeterred. “There’s a hell of a middle ground between a sip of my Jack and Coke and getting shitfaced. I just want you to try an actual drink, something other than half a beer.”  
  
“I don’t like alcohol,” Sam said.  
  
“Yeah, ‘cause you’ve only ever had half a beer.”  
  
Sam spun to face him, his expression dark. “This is a bad idea in so many ways. You, of all people, should know that.”  
  
Dean huffed, then stepped in closer and dropped his voice even lower. “What, you think I don’t get the vigilance thing? That there are threats everywhere? But I’m telling you, you can let your guard down for  _one_ night to have some fun—”  
  
“That’s not what I mean,” Sam snapped. “And _one of us_  has to be the sober one.”  
  
Dean’s jaw clicked shut.  
  
He wasn’t a fucking idiot. He knew there was something more going on in Sam’s head than worrying about letting his guard down. Hell, if he’d thought this was just about Sam disliking alcohol, he would have let it go a long time ago.  
  
But Sam had  _something_ about alcohol, something that went beyond the kick and antiseptic flavor that could, Dean guessed, take getting used to. Sam’s wariness about just taking a sip of Bud had set off warning signals in Dean’s gut.  
  
Sam had taken those sips only because Dean had wheedled, and Dean hoped like hell Sam hadn’t done it just because of the old mindfuckery that made him value Dean’s wishes over his own. But Dean also prayed that Sam’s wariness and, yes, his fear wasn’t because he hated down to his bones what Dean could become sometimes when life kicked him in the teeth and he started hitting the bottle like it was personally responsible.  
  
Dean had been getting better, cutting back on drinking, doing less stupid shit when he was buzzed. He didn’t think that Sam’s hangup about alcohol was just because of Dean’s past party days, and he trusted his gut. But he also knew he was perilously close to bullying Sam into something he didn’t want to do.  
  
Dean would rather turn himself in for grave robbing or sell the Impala for scrap than do that.  
  
Their silence lasted through the rest of the weird-ass pottery display. The next room was all about landscapes and paintings of fruit. While Dean didn’t necessarily like them better, he felt like he at least got their deal. He took a slow, cautious breath.  
  
“I’ll stick to Coke and be your DD,” Dean said. “Or we can cut loose at the apartment, no problem. Wherever you’re comfortable.”  
  
“I’m comfortable not drinking,” Sam said, facing a painting of a gloomy naked dude sitting on a rock, staring out over a stormy sea.  
  
Dean took a second to follow Sam’s gaze, wondering what the guy did to get that ripped and why he was so damned unhappy. Next thing he knew, Sam had dragged him by the arm to the wall, holding him just inches from the DO NOT TOUCH THE PAINTINGS sign.  
  
"You don't know what's going to happen,” he said, with an intensity that was almost ferocious. His face was so close that Dean could pick out the golden and green highlights in his hazel eyes. “You have no idea what kind of drunk I'll be. Maybe I start crying on your shoulder or trying to hug everyone in the bar. Maybe I’ll get  _angry_." He leaned in, hissing in a whisper, "You have no fucking clue if I'll  _freak out_  or not, and what are you going to do then?"  
  
Relief rushed through Dean. Yeah, maybe this was about Dean’s drinking, and maybe it was about losing inhibitions, and maybe it was about the taste of alcohol itself, but it was mostly Sam scared of breaking down those conscious barriers that he thought kept him human. That kept the “freakishness” at bay.  
  
But there was nothing to keep at bay, nothing hidden, nothing nasty that was waiting to come out. For five years now Dean had lived with Sam, shared a bed and a car and hundreds of hunts with him, and he knew down to his bones that there was nothing monstrous in him that couldn’t be explained by the twisted reality of humanity. And Sam had a damn sight less of that darkness than most people Dean knew.  
  
Dean didn’t look away. “Ten bucks says you don’t freak out.”  
  
Sam stepped back with an incredulous eye roll. “You’re crazy,” he said, and Dean knew there was affection under the disbelief.  
  
He jumped on it. “Dude, seriously. Nothing’s going to happen, I’d bet you my ass. You want to live the rest of your life with this worry hanging over your head? Yeah, maybe you’re a weird-ass drunk, but that’s all you’re going to be, and you won’t know until you try. Can’t get much uglier than me. And hey—” He moved closer to Sam, taking his hand. “I swear to you no matter what, I’ll be there in the morning.”  
  
Sam closed his eyes, shaking his head, and moved down the gallery, Dean following a half-step behind.  
  
They stopped before a life-sized painting of some well-formed naked dudes having what looked like a rollicking good time, swinging some kind of jugs around.  
  
“Now those dudes know how to party,” Dean said, and Sam snorted under his breath.  
  
They stared at the painting together, longer than it deserved in Dean’s opinion, and then Sam sighed. “You’ll stay sober the whole time?” he asked, turning to face Dean directly. “You’ll watch me?”  
  
“I’ll watch over you,” Dean corrected. “You gotta trust yourself, Sam.”  _I do_. He didn’t say the words, but he hoped that Sam heard them.  
  
Sam’s mouth pressed in a thin line, but there was a hint of a wry smile there. “Well,” he said. “I guess we party.”  
  
Dean had the good grace to wait until Sam’s back was turned to fist pump, though he figured his kid saw him anyway from his peripheral vision, which was so good it was basically cheating. He could  _feel_ Sam’s eye roll, even if he couldn’t see it, and it just made him grin wider.  
  
~*~  
  
As Sam stepped into the restaurant, the bottles behind the bar drew his eye in a way that had never happened on other nights in other bars. Maybe it was the placement. The restaurant had arranged tables and booths surrounding a bar in the middle, bottles stacked to the ceiling on glass shelves with backlighting that made them gleam like multicolored jewels of liquid temptation, both alluring and toxic.  
  
Maybe they drew his eye was because tonight he was going to drink more than half a beer, and he had no idea in what state he’d be leaving the restaurant.  
  
They took a booth in the back, with heavy menus describing complex and tantalizing burgers and fantastical finger foods. It was all a more pretentious version of their usual diners, but Sam knew Dean had wanted something special for Sam’s birthday, even though he’d scoff if Sam tried to steer them somewhere similar for Dean’s own birthdays.  _Like I need any more of a present than what I got in front of me_ , he’d said, and tugged Sam in close by his belt loops, into the vee of his legs, for the kind of kiss that still made Sam flush to remember it.  
  
“You got a preference between these fancy-ass cheeseburgers?” Dean asked.  
  
Sam shrugged one shoulder. “Might as well go for their chef’s favorite, since it’s got all the arrows and circles around it.”  
  
“Sure, let’s see if they deserve the hype.”  
  
When their waitress (Angie, by her nametag) stopped by, Dean ordered them each the burger and a Coke, plus an order of potato skins. Sam released a breath he’d held in a little too long as she moved away, but Dean called “Hey, Angie!” after her.  
  
She turned back with a quizzical look.  
  
Dean smiled, and it lit up his face with a charm few could resist. “Can I make one of those a rum and Coke? Bacardi’s fine.”  
  
Sam nudged Dean’s foot under the table as Angie disappeared around the bar. “I thought you were sticking to just Coke.”  
  
“That one’s for you, birthday boy,” Dean said, light and offhand, and threw him a quick smirk.  
  
Sam made a face at him in return. He could do this, as long as he knew that Dean would be watching him, undistracted.  
  
Their Cokes, spiked and regular, arrived together. Dean toasted Angie with the alcoholic one, making her smile before moving on to another table.  
  
Sam was watching the glass, not sure that he was ready for the first rabid-sour taste of liquor, when Dean caught his eye.  
  
He wiggled the glass, nearly spilling the liquid within. “If you’d rather trade me the car keys for this, we can do that. You don’t gotta drink anything. It’d be a pretty shitty birthday if you didn’t have a choice, and I know that. I really do, even if I get an idea in my head sometimes and can’t let it go. So if you want, I’ll finish this, you drive us home, and we do whatever you want tonight.”  
  
Sam held Dean’s gaze for a long minute, but saw nothing but sincerity there. No matter which way he went with this, no matter what happened, Dean would be there the next morning. He wouldn’t be pissed.  
  
Sighing, Sam extended his hand, beckoning for the glass. “You’re right, I can’t be afraid of this forever.”  
  
Dean paused, a frown creasing his brow. “I wasn’t looking to turn your big twenty-one into a fear challenge.”  
  
Sam wrapped his fingers around the bottom of the glass, under Dean’s hand. “Promise you’ll get us out of here the second you don’t like what’s happening.”  
  
“Sure, Sam,” Dean said, and let go of the glass. “We’ll go home if we’re not having a good time, same as any night.”  
  
Sam made a face at him, then shrugged in resignation and lifted the glass to his lips. He hesitated for a moment before taking a sip.  
  
The gasoline and floor-cleaner tang of alcohol, barely covered by the Coke, hit his taste buds almost immediately. It shuddered down his throat as he swallowed that first sip and prepared for the next, bracing himself to ignore the taste so that he could get this done as soon as possible.  
  
The next thing he knew, Dean was out of his seat and moving around the table to push him down the bench.  
  
“Dude, what are you doing?” Sam felt the first rush of adrenaline, the first worry, before Dean grinned at him. This close, Sam could see every gold fleck in his laughing green eyes.  
  
“Sammy, you can’t make this a super-serious ninja challenge. We’re celebrating your goddamn twenty-first birthday. We’re gonna stay chill even if it kill us.”  
  
Sam felt a laugh in his chest that he tried very hard to keep off his face. “Fucking weirdo.”  
  
“Yeah, we’re a matching pair.” Dean elbowed him and stretched his arm behind Sam’s shoulders. After a moment, Sam let himself lean back into Dean’s comforting warmth. It was easier to bring the drink to his lips again.  
  
~  
  
Moving over to Sam’s side of the table had been an awesome decision. Not only was it a hell of a lot easier to keep Sam distracted from whatever brain weasels were eating at him, but every time he got to touch Sam’s neck or run a hand down his back was a little reward for his promise to stay sober. He even caught Sam’s mouth in one soda-sweet kiss before their dinner arrived.  
  
“So,” he said, as Angie slid their plates onto the table, “did you get anything out of that museum today?”  
  
Sam raised a shoulder in a half-shrug. “The watercolors were nice. But the St. Louis collection was better.”  
  
They’d seen a museum in nearly every state by now, since they’d made the habit of looking up the nearest one after a hunt where no one died, or they otherwise felt like they’d earned it. Sam liked art: exhibits with big canvases covering the walls, glass cases of ancient pottery and jewelry, rooms full of dancing girls or muscular men posing forever in marble. It was a learning curve for Dean, seeing beauty outside the weight of a weapon or the lines of a classic car, but he’d learned a new appreciation for them by watching Sam’s face as he took them in. It was the same way he looked at things as simple as fields of wildflowers and the vast plains of the west: beautiful things that existed for their own sake.  
  
Sam loved the science museums, too, and ones dedicated to things like the history of trains or potatoes, because he was an enormous nerd.  
  
By the end of the meal (and they were frickin’ awesome burgers, Dean took back every bad word he’d ever thought about them), Sam had relaxed enough to slouch against him, one hand twined with Dean’s under the table. His second drink was down to ice, and he rolled it thoughtfully on its rim.  
  
“I don’t really feel anything yet.” He glanced at Dean.  
  
Dean kind of thought that Sam was feeling it, but not really noticing it. “They’re not mixing them for big an’ tall geekboys of brilliance. Want another?”  
  
Sam sighed. “Well, that’s why we’re here.”  
  
When the third drink arrived, Dean slipped his arm behind Sam’s back, letting his fingers settle over Sam’s hip. “My sweet sixteenth was the first birthday I had a fake ID that got me into a bar. Ended totally hammered, woke up a couple towns over from where I started, but it was an awesome night.” He paused. “That’s not gonna happen tonight, of course.”  
  
Sam rolled his eyes, pressing his shoulder into Dean’s. “Were you with anyone?”  
  
“Nah. I mean.” Dean shrugged. “No one I saw again.”  
  
Sam traced the rim of his glass with one finger, head slightly tilted. “I’m glad nothing bad happened to you.”  
  
“Hm.” Dean turned his head, brushing his lips along the exposed line of skin above Sam’s collar. “I was a dumb, cocky kid. Got lucky a bunch of times.”  
  
Sam turned and kissed him deep, no dallying about it, and Dean got the message. The kiss lingered, and they paused with their foreheads touching, breath mingling, before Sam turned to take another sip.  
  
“Still,” Dean said finally, “I gotta say my twenty-first was my favorite, though it didn’t end so hot. I mean, I fucked up real bad. But still, it was my best one yet.”  
  
Sam snorted. “Me catching you with a chick makes it the best?”  
  
“Nah. You being there, period.”  
  
Sam sighed, but it was completely different this time around, and he slouched deeper into Dean’s hold. Dean tucked his nose under Sam’s ear and just took a breath.  
  
The fourth drink was mostly gone when Sam said, “So, uh, my lips are...tingling? That thing I’ve read about?” He rested his chin on Dean’s shoulder, playing idly with Dean’s fingers between his own.  
  
“Yeah?” Dean said, intrigued. “How you feeling otherwise?”  
  
“Pretty good.” Sam blinked slowly. “This is nice. The room feels… far away. Like it’s not really there. I see why people like this.” He exhaled, turning his face to bury it in Dean’s neck. “You’re not drinking, right?”  
  
“No way. You’ve seen me just get Coke this whole time.”  
  
“Good. I’m not…I wouldn’t be very useful right now. Like if you started a fight.”  
  
Dean snorted. “You’re in luck, ‘cause I’m not gonna start a fight.”  
  
“Sometimes you do,” Sam muttered. “You like to start shit. Sometimes for no reason.”  
  
“Hey, I always got a reason.”  
  
Sam turned his head and bit the top of Dean’s ear, lightly, but enough to make him jump and grab Sam’s hip. “Dude!”  
  
“Sometimes,” Sam murmured, and met his eyes as Dean turned toward him, “your reasons are not very good.”  
  
Dean chuckled, working his hand further under Sam’s undershirt to lay his palm against the warm skin of Sam’s back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, my reasons are awesome. Well, I’m not starting anything tonight. This is your night, and I’m not gonna leave your side. When we go, we’re going together.”  
  
“Unless,” Sam said, with very precise pronunciation, “one of us is going to the bathroom.”  
  
“Well, yeah. We can make that journey on our own.”  
  
Sam tapped his glass. “One more. Then we’re going home.”  
  
When the last drink arrived, Sam asked abruptly, “You know my favorite m’seum exhibit? It was German. Kal—Kalckreuth. Him. We saw ‘em in Los Angeles. Do you remember? All the paints, paintings of the ocean. The big ones, with the waves.”  
  
“Oh yeah,” Dean said. “Yeah, Sammy, I remember those.” They’d been larger than average, but Dean probably wouldn’t have remembered except Sam’s glee had been less contained than usual, even in a crowd.  
  
Sam seemed to have a hard time focusing on his face, but he was trying, his manner intent now, except for the distraction of Dean’s hand between his. “Those are just like the ocean. You showed me the ocean. That’s what they remind me of, that first  _whoa!_  That’s why I like to look at them, it’s like… being there again. And he understood that, he got it, that Kalckreuth dude.”  
  
“Huh.” Dean tipped his head back, doing some quick calculations. “We could check out that museum again. Only take a couple of days.”  
  
Sam snorted, warm breath against Dean’s neck. “Exhibit’s pro’ly gone. Pro-bab-ly.” He enunciated carefully, but his eyes fluttered shut.  
  
“You think I can’t track it down?”  
  
Sam laughed, and the sound moved down his body in a shiver. Shit, Dean needed to get Sam home.  
  
“‘S time to go,” Sam announced, and it wasn’t even really a surprise they were on the same page.  
  
“Yeah, you ready?”  
  
“Mmhmm. Not ‘cause I—feel different, like, bad—just. Not sure I can walk right.”  
  
“Okay, I gotcha.” Dean didn’t ask what Sam meant by feeling different-like-bad, but he had a feeling Sam wasn’t talking about needing to puke.  
  
Arm around Sam’s back and Sam’s around his waist, because Sam didn’t seem inclined to let go of him, they made their way out of the restaurant and into the night.  
  
~*~  
  
Sam woke with sunlight streaming through their window, his head heavy and the smell of bacon in the air. He felt groggy, confused, and blurry for just a second, and then he remembered. The rum and Cokes. The sharp taste of alcohol and the soft blur of the world as it faded out. The unshakeable feel of Dean at his side, under his arm.  
  
He didn’t feel any different. There had been water, a couple pills, and slow making out last night before they tumbled into bed, and today he felt like himself. No monstrous thoughts. No freakish powers. Just a few hours where everything had felt a little less sharp, softened in a way that he’d never felt outside of a head injury.  
  
It could have been terrifying. Looking back, it didn’t feel like it would be attractive at all. Except for how he could remember Dean’s face smiling at him, Dean’s arm around his shoulders, and that had given everything a joy that easily made it...good.  
  
He pulled himself out from the covers and wandered down the hall to the kitchen. He was just in time to see Dean pour batter into the griddle for their first pancake. He saw Sam, and a grin broke out over his face. When he reached out, Sam let himself be pulled into Dean’s arms for a good morning kiss. Like it did every morning, it felt like coming home.  
  
“Hey, beautiful,” Dean said. “How are you feeling?”  
  
Sam made a face. “Thirsty. Head’s kind of thick, but it doesn’t really hurt.”  
  
“Awesome. Get some coffee and knock back some more aspirin, I left it out on the counter.”  
  
Sam grabbed the meds and a mug of coffee and settled at the table to munch on bacon and wait for Dean to finish the pancakes.  
  
They had consumed nearly the whole stack, and Sam’s proto-headache had faded, when Dean knocked his foot. Sam gave him a look, and Dean grinned.  
  
“Told you so,” he said.  
  
Sam glared. “It went okay once. That doesn’t mean you get to—”  
  
“Actually, that’s  _exactly_ what it means, that I am a goddamn genius who you should listen to every time.”  
  
“—be insufferable about it,” Sam finished. “But fine, you get one good gloat.”  
  
“C’mon, admit it. I was right. You’re a freaking adorable drunk. The kind that gets all handsy and likes to talk about his favorite paintings. Real scary.”  
  
Sam made a face at him, even though he could feel his cheeks redden. “It’s not something I want to make a habit of.”  
  
“Sure,” Dean said. “I can see that. But are you worried about it anymore?”  
  
Sam thought about it. He still didn’t get what Dean liked in the taste of alcohol, and he wouldn’t want to be drunk whenever there was a chance of a fight, or in any kind of uncontrolled environment where neither of them was staying sober. But he could see the appeal of making the world feel less real, less threatening. And, to be honest with himself, he wasn’t afraid anymore that copious drinking would bring on any worse behavior than he’d seen from Dean when he drank too much  
  
“No,” he said. “I suppose I’m not.”  
  
Dean lifted his orange juice with that easy, cocky smirk that drove Sam half-crazy and half in love every time he saw it. “Happy twenty-first, Sam. May you see many more oceans, and someday come to appreciate a good whisky neat.”  
  
Sam smiled back at him and raised his own glass. “Here’s to many more birthdays with the best thing in the world.”  
  
“That German dude’s paintings?”  
  
“You.” Sam sipped his drink, savoring the joy that lit up Dean’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're unfamiliar with Kalkreuth's work, I reblogged a selection of his ocean paintings to the tumblog I made in our Sam's name some years ago: http://fc-samwinchester.tumblr.com/post/123973725729/art-and-things-of-beauty-paintings-of-sea  
> Check them out. I don't actually know how big the originals are, but I like to imagine they're massive.
> 
> Also (minor-ish spoiler for upcoming general chapter vibes, in case you've hit your sweet-tooth limit by the end of this one): this is the last feel-good chapter for...the rest of Part Two, yep.
> 
> ETA: APPARENTLY I OVERDID IT WITH THE ABOVE WARNING. Please see my comment here for explanation and apologies (tl;dr it's not as bad as you think, we still promise a happy ending!): http://archiveofourown.org/comments/116133024


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